


the darkness in stars

by ShinjiShazaki



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Trollstuck, mild revisionist AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:50:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinjiShazaki/pseuds/ShinjiShazaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do an heir to an empire and a fugitive from said empire fall in love?</p><p>A great deal of serendipity, not a few murders, alliances with rebels and gangsters alike, and fateful duels that transcend the quadrants, social strata, and time and space itself.</p><p>Inspired by one picture, fueled by others.</p><p>This story will not be continued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. wide open doors

**Author's Note:**

> Originally inspired by [this picture from roachpatrol](http://roachpatrol.tumblr.com/post/29157792342/lets-join-forces-weve-got-our-guns-and-horses), subsequently helped along by [this species swap ](http://angerliz.tumblr.com/tagged/species-swap).
> 
> This chapter is heavily world-building.

Calliope was her real name, but it was not one she could freely use. She had not earned it, and so she could not tell people of what she had known all her life. As she pulled herself upright in her recuperacoon, she thought bitterly on the name she used day to day.

"Happy wriggling day, _Call_ ," she said with a slurring mouth. "Ten sweeps old today and you still have your four letters."

With a small sigh, she set her forehead against the lip of the 'coon and closed her eyes. Her head was splitting from day terrors, unhindered by the thin sopor slime. She couldn't remember the last time she had gotten new slime. It was certainly weeks, potentially a perigee or two. It was still better than going dry, and she reached her hands down into the slime to gather some on her fingers.

The base of her horns were massaged first; horns and skin absorbed the slime as she worked it in. The ache faded a little, but not much. Just one more testament to how her wriggling day present to herself should probably be a drum of slime, she supposed. Next were her eyes, and she gently rubbed slime along the burning skin beneath them. It was even less useful than it was for her headache, and she let her hands fall back into the slime with a quiet _plap_.

Nothing for it, she decided, and pulled herself up and out. Her home was a tiny flat with cracks in the walls and one hundred square feet to its name. It was a brief journey to the open ablution trap in one corner, and she left behind green footprints as she went. Calliope smiled wearily at the brightness of the sopor when it was spread so thin. The smile turned into a grimace when she turned on the water. It was frigid, as it always was so early in the night, and there was only the slightest change in temperature when she turned it all the way to hot. She did not linger, standing there just long enough to scrub the sopor off before it crusted over.

Sighing hard, she turned off the water and wiped off what clung to her skin. For a time, she stood there, naked and dripping. When the cold finally overwhelmed her, she stepped out of the trap and started toward the green suit hanging to one side of the 'coon. She was so exhausted she almost missed her computer chiming. Calliope looked at her small husktop, sitting open on the wobbly table on the opposite side of the room as the 'coon, and snatched the suit and its hanger before sitting on the creaky chair.

\--tempestuousGamine [TG] began trolling uranianUmbra [UU]\--

TG: happy wigrrlin day clal!!!  
TG: *wriggling  
TG: *call  
TG: how r u  
UU: jUst fine, dove.  
UU: yoU caUght me fresh oUt of bed, i’m afraid.  
TG: *gasp*  
TG: u have offended my sensiblltys  
TG: *sensibialts  
TG: *sensebillies  
TG: fuck it my lady-ness  
UU: ha ha! well, i am sorry to offend, dove, bUt yoU’re the one who’s Up at Unholy hoUrs of the day!  
UU: why are yoU Up so early, anyway?  
TG: cuz its ur wriggling day dunkass  
TG *dumbass  
UU: yes bUt  
TG: no buts!  
TG: except urs since ur not in pants lol  
UU: sorry to disappoint, bUt i’ve been getting dressed as we’re chatting.  
TG: DX  
TG: fine be that way  
UU: so why is my wriggling day so important?  
UU: wait, i’m forgetting something!  
UU: happy wriggling day to yoU as well!  
TG: aw thanx!  
TG: but totes not why im up  
UU: then coloUr me clUeless, roxy.  
TG: i’m up to make a trip to teh surface!!  
TG: *the  
UU: oh  
UU: Uh  
UU: no, i’m not anywhere near an ocean  
TG: ur not that far away  
TG: i mapped ur location with ur ip address  
TG: also some haxxing into ur husktop  
UU: that’s thoUghtless and rUde and yoU know it.  
TG: but i can finally visit u!  
TG: and its our wriggling day!  
TG: 8 and 9!  
TG: we were gonna spend it 2gether online anyway!  
TG: that makes up for haxxing right?  
UU: yoU can’t visit me.  
TG: but  
UU: i’m sorry  
UU: i  
UU: i have things to attend to

\--uraniumUmbra [UU] ceased trolling tempestuousGamine [TG]\--

Quickly Calliope closed out of Trollian, but slowly she closed the husktop. She sat there in her worn-out suit, jacket unbuttoned and plain black t-shirt showing. Leaning back carefully, she ran a hand through her wet hair. Her stomach growled so long and so loud that it evolved into a hunger cramp. She winced, hand dropping from her hair down to her stomach to massage away the pain.

From the inside pocket of her jacket she drew out her wallet. Though she knew what she would find, she checked its innards anyway. Thanks to the sparing payments from her last few art commissions, there were credits enough for a drum of sopor just large enough to fill her 'coon, or for food that could last her two weeks if she ate as sparingly as she always did. A brief mental tally reminded her that she had not eaten for three days.

The hunger could not wait, and she had an idea for the sopor.

Admittedly, she did not think it was a very good idea.

\-------

In addition to hiding her real name, Calliope had not taken a second name. A second name was a right afforded to a troll starting at six sweeps. It was not necessary, but most preferred to have the second name to distinguish themselves.

But to register a second name, you had to give a sample of your blood. Calliope could not do that, and so she went without.

With food in her stomach, heading back toward home was more manageable. Only it was not to home that she went. Hers was not a good neighborhood; it was just one in a long string of bad neighborhoods that she had lived in. What made it different from all the others was that she was actually on good terms with the great mob of the region.

At nine, Jane Crocker was a sweep shy of gaining her six letters. Unlike the lowbloods in her employ, no one feared that a girl with blood as blue as her would be killed before she received six letters. She sat as the mob's leader, proud and polite and highly willing to listen to a request for money, maiming, or murder. All she ever asked in return is that you paid her back at the price she would have.

It was not a desire, nor a request. She simply would have the price, or she would have your head to decorate the outer walls of her offices.

Calliope was led to Jane's personal office by her runner, a rustblood wearing sunglasses, a broadsword on his belt, black slacks and jacket, and a black t-shirt with a rusty scratched circle sigil done in simple, single lines. He was a silent man, shorter than her by half a head. If they compared horns, his were perhaps more impressive with their wide curl backward, but hers corkscrewed up in arcs to tower over most any troll she met, just as she did in general. She didn't think he liked her, but she doubted he liked anyone at all.

Jane stood up from her desk when the the man opened the door, and spread her arms wide when she saw Calliope. Her smile was gentle and genteel, her foremost fangs jutting a little over her lower lip. She said, "Hello, Call! What can I do for you today?"

Resisting the urge to fiddle with the hem of her jacket, Calliope replied, "I need money for sopor slime. I'm running low."

Jane's expression grew quizzical, but it was exaggerated. It made Calliope grimace. "Why don't you have any money for sopor?"

"Because no one wants drawings right now, Jane."

The man, standing by the door with his arms crossed, cleared his throat quietly.

"Ma'am," she amended.

"Oh, _Dave_ ," Jane chided, clicking her tongue. "Manners, manners. This is Miss Call--she can call me by my name."

He hummed flat and low in response.

With a giggle, Jane moved to the front of her desk and leaned against it. She wore a long skirt of pale blue, matching her blood, with a white blouse embroidered with her sigil of a horned blue horned beast. Behind her oval glasses, the grey of her eyes was just barely beginning to fill with color. Through her curly black hair sprouted horns that looked not a little like tined spoons, but the first time she had ever commented on their resemblance had been the last, as it cost her a back fang courtesy of Dave's fist. She continued to smile and said, "It just so happens that I have a way for you to get your sopor money and pay me back for it at the same time."

"You do?" Fear made her grimace worsen. "You won't make me _sell_ anything again, will you?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Jane said, waving her hand to punctuate each denial. "Frankly, you're awful at selling rock candy. You're awful at selling _sopor pies_ , and those are practically legal. No, I want you to draw me something."

She faltered at this. Her gaze turned even warier. She glanced at Dave; his face gave away nothing. "Draw you something?"

"I also need you to convince someone to tell you what the people I want drawn look like," Jane replied. "See, we've finally caught someone from a gaggle of rebels we've been trying to bring down as a favor to Dave's moirail. It's like we've been hunting shadows, since we don't know what their leaders look like."

"Did you really only just get them?" Calliope asked. "This seems like bloody good timing for me to come to you."

"Oh, it is good timing, but I would've sent Dave to fetch you if you hadn't come to us on your own." She leaned forward, smile taking on a tinge of pleading that Calliope knew was not real. "So can you do me a favor and get this rube to spill her guts before we _actually_ spill her guts?"

"I...yes, I can."

"Good! Come with us!" As she moved toward it, she gestured to the door to the left of her desk. Calliope followed her, Dave close behind them both. Beyond the door was a steep wooden staircase through a narrow passageway of cold, black brick. Above them hung bare lightbulbs; Calliope wondered if the ones that flickered were designed to do so for the sake of intimidating the people brought down this path.

It took some time before they reached the bottom, and the room they entered into was as cold as the water in her ablution had been not two hours ago. Based on the yellow of the steaming blood dripping from the nose of a girl lashed to a chair at the room's center, Calliope decided the cold was just another method of torture. The girl, surely only six or seven, looked up at their approach and spat a gob of congealed blood onto Jane's blouse. It earned her a blow across the face from Dave's elbow.

Jane cooly picked the gob from her shirt and flicked it back into the girl's eye. "That was rude."

"Piss off, Crocker," the girl snarled between broken fangs.

"Maybe later." She snapped her fingers.

Dave hauled over a chair with a ringed pad of paper on its seat and plunked it down in front of the girl. She looked askance at it until Calliope moved forward, and then her confusion switched to her. She shifted uneasily in her bonds as Calliope picked up the pad and sat down, but went still when Calliope's entirely gray eyes met hers.

"Who's your leader?" she asked.

"'M not telling you," the girl mumbled in reply.

"No, you will," Calliope said. She drew out the pencil that was stored in the pad's rings and began to sharpen it with careful flicks of the claw on her thumb. "You want to, little one."

"I don't!"

Calliope looked at her again, head tipped down slightly. "You do. It's for the better if you tell me."

The girl spat in her face, missing her eyes only because she reacted fast enough to close them. "It's _not_."

Dave dealt another blow, this time a punch to the girl's stomach. She coughed out spit and blood, wheezing as Calliope held up a hand. He backed away; she sat forward.

"Tell me _about_ your leader," she said. "About this rebellion."

The girl, panting for breath now that it was possible to draw it again, stared at her with eyes that saw blurry images. "Why do _you_ care?"

"Color me curious, and paint me a picture of what you're trying to do."

"We're--we're trying to bring down the empire."

Calliope sighed and sat back, crossing her long legs at the knee. She settled the pad on her skinny thigh and tapped the pencil on its rings. "You and every other rebel ever sworn to the challenge, pigeon. What's so special about your leader?"

"He's the best fighter on the planet--and he's the smartest person, too! No one's smarter than Dirk!"

"So his name is Dirk."

"Dirk _Strider_ ," said the girl, looking at Dave with a sneering smile. A corner of his mouth twitched down; she sniggered.

"Does he look like Dave?" Calliope asked casually, beginning to sketch.

"Looks _better_ than him." She looked Dave up and down. "His hair is cooler. And his shades."

"How so?"

"They're pointier."

Calliope and Jane both chuckled, and Calliope murmured, "Jolly good, then. And his horns?"

"They go forward, like a real fighter's should. Just the right size and curve to stab someone's shoulders if he headbutts them."

"What about his blood?"

"Orange. He's able to explode things at will."

Jane chuckled quietly. "Interesting."

"What's his sigil?" Calliope asked.

"A billed hat."

She nodded and went quiet, her pencil hurrying across the paper. The girl stared at her, completely fixated and still. It took less than five minutes before Calliope was able to turn the pad around and show the figure drawn on the page to the girl. She asked, "Is this how Dirk Strider looks?"

The girl did not hesitate before nodding.

"Good." She stood up and moved to hand the pad over to Jane.

As it changed hands, the girl shuddered visibly. She shook her head as though to cast something away, and turned to look at Calliope with rage flaming in her eyes. There was no time for her to speak before Dave grabbed her shoulder. He dug his claws into her flesh, and she cried out with the pain of it. In that instant of her mouth being open, Dave summoned flames into his free hand and crammed them down her throat. She died almost instantly, unable to scream for how her vocal cords were reduced to ash.

"Good work, Call," said Jane with a smile. "Dave, how much does a drum of sopor run nowadays?"

\-------

Sopor and its sale was a paradoxical thing. Despite its viscosity and thickness, the slime itself was not very heavy. And despite its dire need, Calliope found that most sopor suppliers placed themselves in the worst parts of cities. So it was that she heaved the drum of slime up and over her shoulder immediately when the sale was complete and made for home as quickly as she could.

On every corner there was something being sold. Sopor pies were nearest the shop, with rock candy coming next. The youngest seller of candy couldn't have been more than five sweeps old, and this deep in the city Calliope was certain the boy was one of Jane's. The sheer amount of the drug the boy had would have assured that Dave personally would have set him alight were he anyone else's.

The prostitutes came next as the avenues broadened and the streets grew wider. The pale ones were always the most forward, coming right up to her and stroking at her hair as best they could. They cooed over her, papping her on her high-boned cheeks and asking if she wanted a decent meal, poor thing. Next were the caliginous, who didn't have the decency of being careful about her sopor. They threw stones until it was clear that she would not buy what they sold. Flushed came last, and they were at least the most hospitable. They simply catcalled at her, telling her what a charming sight she made, and a strong one at that.

It had been a long day already, and she had only been awake for three hours. All she wanted was to get home and go back to sleep. With at least some food in her stomach and a new supply of sopor, a nap might actually take away her headache. A nap might even help her forget, for a moment, that it was her wriggling day. But, she knew, it would not help her forget that she had disappointed Roxy.

A troll went flying by not a foot in front of her, moving so fast and so hard that he skipped off the pavement like a stone on water. Calliope started violently, the drum of sopor bouncing off her shoulder. She managed to react fast enough to catch the thing, wrapping her long arms around it before it crashed down into the cracking the man had left behind. Surprised instinct made her take a step back, and it kept her safe from the broad-shouldered and bespectacled troll that dashed by to chase after the first.

For a moment, she thought it was just another street fight. When she heard gunfire, though, she knew it was something special. Guns were hard to come by when you were a lowblood, and there was only one person she knew in the city who owned one. That person's identity told her who the bespectacled troll was, and that combined knowledge set her to running as fast as her legs would carry her.

Around the next corner was a corpse, clad all in the dark violets that spoke of imperial warriors. There was a bullet hole in her forehead, just above her right eyebrow. Calliope did not linger for fear of being mistaken for another warrior. She had never once _met_ Jade Harley, and she did not like her chances of being considered cannon fodder in the middle of a firefight for lack of camaraderie.

But it was, perhaps, worse to not be known by John Egbert. The man was wont to leave behind mounds of his enemies, all piled together once he had shattered their limbs, and she found the beginnings of one such pile when she came to the main street. Calliope faltered; she had assumed there would be safety in following the major thoroughfare. When another imperial-clothed body was flung the length of the street to slam into the pile, she jumped clean off the ground and nearly dropped the sopor once again. The body moved; a gunshot minutely proceeded the body's collapse back into stillness.

All she wanted was to be in her pathetic little hive. That was her mantra as she sprinted around the pile of bodies and made her way onto the next street. She didn't want to know why the empress was after Harley and Egbert again. She didn't want to know why Jane and Dave were burning rebels when they had once only killed rivals. She didn't want to know why Roxy wanted to visit her. All she wanted as to be in her pathetic little hive with her pathetic little body and be by her pathetic little self. That was what was best, and she ran with her bloodpusher pounding statacco inside her chest.

That she made it back through the maelstrom with the drum unscathed seemed nothing short of a miracle. She rounded the last corner to arrive back at her hivestem with her breath stuck somewhere behind her tongue, but with a smile plastered on her sweaty face. But when the corner was fully taken, the smile faded fast.

A small, soft seatroll with a pink-purple streak in her forelock and lipstick, a low cut gray shirt with a pink purrbeast head sigil, and queerly hooked horns stood outside the entrance to the hivestem, texting away on her smartphone. Two more imperial guards stood by her, and a deep rush of horror made Calliope begin to back away. Before she could slip away out of sight, the seatroll noticed her.

"Hey!" she said in a bright, clear voice, not at all the warble she had been led to expect of seadwellers. "Do you live here? I'm looking for a troll named Call."

"It's pronounced 'Cal,'" Calliope said automatically, and swore vehemently at herself inside her head.

The seatroll's face lit up. "You know her! That's so awesome! Do you know which block she's in?" When Calliope did not reply, the seatroll looked at her more inquisitively. She shooed away the guards and moved toward Calliope slowly, head tilted slightly. When her eyes caught sight of the slitherbeast encircled staff hand-stitched on her jacket's lapel, she gasped.

"Oh my troll God!" the seatroll said. "It's _you_! _You're_ my Call!"

" _Your_ Call?"

The seatroll plucked the drum out of her arms with a strength wildly belied by her size, set it down, and wrapped her in a air-stealing hug. When she was done with that, she pulled back and said, "I told you I was going to come visit you today!"

An even greater horror instilled itself in her gut. " _Roxy_?"

And then Roxy did the most mind-shattering thing Calliope could have imagined: she grabbed the lapels of Calliope's jacket, pulled her down, and kissed her.

She wanted to enjoy it, really and truly she did. But Roxy was too eager, and her fangs too sharp. She cut Calliope's lip and spilled her blood, and Calliope jerked back to slap a hand over her mouth. Surprise on her face, Roxy reached up and touched the warmth dribbling down her chin. She drew away her hand to find Calliope's blood staring back at her.

"Lady Lalonde?" one of the guards asked. "Has the lowblood hurt you?"

The other guard drew a pistol from beneath his long robes and aimed it at Calliope's head. "What did you do?"

Roxy wiped her mouth clean and smeared the blood too thin for a color to be discernible before turning around. "I'm fine. Go help figure out what's up with the other lowbloods."

"But--"

The gillflaps on her neck flared, as did her finned ears. "Are you disobeying me?"

"No'm!"

"Good. Get outta here." Before they departed, she snatched the pistol away and stuck it in her skirt's waistband. She looked at Calliope then, confusion and hurt showing in her young, gray eyes.

"You wanna explain?" she asked.

Calliope was silent; she looked down. When Roxy came close and took hold of her stitched lapel, her dread was too great to let her even move. She still had presence of mind enough to resist when Roxy attempted to move her hand.

"No one's here," Roxy whispered. "Just your Roxy-girl, just me. I wanna know if I saw what I saw. I have to, Call, you know I do."

She mumbled behind her hand.

"What?"

Very slowly, very meekly, she took her hand from her face. Her blood, lime green and startlingly bright, was smeared over her hand and chin. Quietly, she said, "My name is Calliope."

Roxy did not hesitate in smiling. "Calliope. I like it."


	2. burst into colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Calliope is stymied at every turn by Roxy; the two of them go to lunch with Dave and Jane joining them; Calliope is sent on a mission to meet with two troublemakers; and a strange message is left on her husktop.

There was a seadweller girl standing in her unpleasant little respiteblock while lime green blood oozed its way down her face. The seadweller girl had a gun, and all she was doing was meandering slowly around the tiny room and steadfastly ignoring the color of her blood. Calliope was baffled, and it was intense enough that she spoke up.

“Aren't you going to use that on me?” she asked. When Roxy looked at her in confusion, she gestured to the gun in her skirt's waistband. She started at the sudden surge of horror in Roxy's face, lips twisting enough that the healing cuts were pulled open and a new dribble of blood began to make its way down her chin.

“Oh, for fuck's _sake_ , Callie,” Roxy said, horror fading for concern. She came away from the recuperacoon and grabbed Calliope's bloody hand. Leading her to the wobbly chair, she forced her to sit before pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket. She held it to Calliope's lip and sighed. Idly, as if she would not be satisfied with her hands being still, she started to stroke her fingers through her hair, bumping up against her horns. Calliope purred quietly, eyes closing and body relaxing.

This continued on for quite some time; Roxy continually petting while checking to see how Calliope's lip fared and Calliope sitting semi-conscious with her headache finally fading. Even when the bleeding had finally stopped, Roxy did not move away. She stood with her hand on Calliope's cheek, thumb stroking the arc of the bone so prominent beneath her gray skin. The other hand she soon put on the back of her head, making her lean in and rest her brow against the softness of Roxy's stomach.

“You never told me you were a seadweller,” Calliope mumbled sleepily.

“It's not really important. I'm not that high up there.”

“You had imperial guards with you, dove.”

Roxy giggled. “That's so funny to hear in your real voice. You have, like, the cutest accent. Did you know that?”

“People have reminded me of my accent, yes, though admittedly never as pleasantly as you. But that doesn't change the fact that you had imperial guards with you. And they called you 'Miss Lalonde.' I thought there was only _one_ Lalonde on Alternia.”

She sighed. “Fine, I'm up there on the stupid 'spectrum. I picked my name to match hers because I'm in line for the throne after her.”

“ _Why_?”

“I dunno, it made sense when I did it.”

“Did it make sense when you didn't have your guards cull me?” Calliope asked.

Frowning, Roxy took her by the lapels and made her stand up. She stared up at her for a moment before scowling and stomping one foot. “Why the fuck are you so _tall_?” Without waiting for a response, she forced Calliope to sit down again and tilted her head back. Looking her dead in the eyes, she said, “How would it make sense for me to tell them to cull the girl I want to be my matesprit?”

“I can’t be your matesprit,” was Calliope’s response.

“And why not?”

Calliope fumbled, mouth working over words that came up with no sound.

Roxy grinned. “See? Can’t give me a good reason!” She leaned down to give Calliope another kiss, but when her lips were stopped by Calliope’s hand, she pouted mightily.

“I’m trying to pick the best of many good reasons,” Calliope said.

“Name just one.”

“I’m a _limeblood_. You’re—you’re supposed to be killing me.”

“Oh, _fuck_ the ‘spectrum,” said Roxy. “It’s boring! And if it means I can’t be with the people I want to be with, then triple fuck it with a chainsaw.” She snorted. “I’ve got a ‘ _proper_ ’ blueblood moirail, so I get to choose who my matesprit is.”

“A blueblood? Who?”

“Janey Crocker,” she replied. “But people still get pissy about her blood being such a light blue.”?

“ _Jane Crocker_? _She’s_ your moirail?”

Roxy waved her hand in dismissal. “We’re gettin’ off topic. You still haven’t given me a good reason that we can’t be matesprits.”

“I’m a—”

“Sexy beast?”

“ _Wreck_ , more like.”

“Wow, that is a load of hoofbeast shit.” She traced the curves of Calliope’s eyebrows with her thumbs, smiling at her gently. “You are amazing and beautiful.” She paused to think, carefully rubbing the heels of her hands against Calliope’s cheeks. “Maybe a lil’ skinny, though.” Her grin returned. “Do you want to get lunch? We should go have lunch together! It’ll be our first date!”

“Don’t you think feeding me is a little more pale than flushed?”

“I can take care of my matesprit just as much as a moirail does.” She frowned, running a hand through Calliope’s hair over and over until she purred. “It doesn’t even sound like you’ve _got_ a moirail.”

Calliope said nothing.

“ _Callie_ ,” Roxy said, a tinge of despair in her voice. Though she would have brooked no refusal this time, Calliope gave no resistance to her kiss. She stayed still for a time, but soon returned the kiss, pushing back into it. Roxy was much more careful with her fangs, minding the freshly closed wounds on Calliope’s lip. When they parted, she lapped at her lip very gently, very slowly.

“See?” she asked. “You like me, too.”

Calliope had no arguments to give in reply, and so she smiled at Roxy weakly before resting her head against her stomach again.

“You can put your hands on my booty, you know.”

Her face burned as she jerked back to look up at the grin aimed toward her. “ _Roxy_!”

“What?” Roxy said in return, drawing out the word. “Matesprits get to do that and you have really long fingers! I bet they’d feel nice.”

The fire in her face grew hotter. “For—for pity’s _sake_ , Roxy.”

“That is just the prettiest shade of green,” Roxy remarked, tapping her cheeks with her forefingers. “Bet no one’s told you that.”

“Obviously _not_ , dove.”

“Lame,” she said, almost singing the word. “You have pretty blood.”

“ _You’re_ pretty.”

“I totes _am_ , ain’t I?” She stepped away slightly, turning a slow circle with her arms raised. From so close, Calliope was nothing short of transfixed. She could see every curve of Roxy’s body, from the rise of her chest to the swell of her stomach, and the shapely arcs of her arms and legs. Her body and the pride she had in it were nothing short of endearing and something Calliope found attractive to the point of distraction. The distraction was enough that she did not realize Roxy had spoken until a hand came to her hair and ruffled gently.

"What?" she asked.

"You're cute when you stare like that," said Roxy. "Well, you're cute _all_ the time."

"I would dispute that if I didn't know you were going to dispute _me_ , and an argument is not something I'm interested in." Her stomach growled hard enough to turn into a hunger cramp, and she grimaced as she bent at the waist.

"Callie? Calliope?" Roxy was on her knees in an instant, hands at Calliope's cheeks and fingers tucked behind her rounded ears. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," she replied, voice strained. "I'm just hungry."

For a moment, confusion showed on her face, but Roxy soon said, "Then let's go have lunch!" She tilted her head up and kissed her chin and her nose in quick succession. "Come on, my treat."

Calliope hesitated. She lifted a hand to touch her lip; she jumped when Roxy’s fingers joined hers.

“It’s all closed up,” Roxy murmured. “Nice and clean and you can’t tell what color green you are.” She moved Calliope’s hand and gave her another kiss. “C’mon, I really want to take you to lunch. We’ll go to the best place in the city!”

“I don’t know what that would be,” Calliope admitted. “I’ve never had the money for anything ‘good.’”

Sighing, Roxy stood up. She pulled Calliope out of the chair before wrapping her arms around her. Head burrowed against her chest, she said, “You’re makin’ me sad, you know.”

“I—yes, I know.” She hesitated one last time before returning the embrace. A burst of boldness took her, and she leaned down to press her lips to the space between Roxy’s horns. In an instant, Roxy began to purr, and she snuggled harder into her chest. Very abruptly, though, she pulled back and looked up at Calliope.

“I’ve got an idea!” she said. “Let’s go ask Janey what the best place to have lunch is!”

And Calliope couldn’t think to refuse.

————

She wondered if she should feel lucky. The first stroke of luck was that she had good, filling food in her stomach, and the second was that Roxy was sitting at her side. The unlucky stroke was that across the table were Jane and Dave, eating lunch with them. She did her best to ignore them and focus on the food and on the hand Roxy had on her knee.

"So," said Jane in a drawl. "What brought this on?"

"Brought on what?" Roxy asked.

"Your slumming with midbloods like our dear Call, of course," was the giggled reply. "I never thought my royal moirail would sink as low as a greenblood for a matesprit."

Roxy took a sip of her drink through its straw, eyes half closed and brows raised. "I still don't care about the hemospectrum, Janey. And if you care so much about the 'spectrum look who's talking, missy blueblood-with-a-rustblood-for-a-matesprit."

Jane laughed aloud, never missing a beat of it while gently slapping Dave's shoulder when he began to stand up, scowling. "Sweetie, you know I'm teasing. I can't stand being a hypocrite about romantic matters."

"Okay," Roxy said with cheer. Her cheer turned dark as she leaned forward and jabbed a claw at both of them in turn. "But you and Davey boy need to not tease my girl. Like, at all. I'll make her tell me if you're treating her badly."

“We’ve never once treated her badly!” Jane said in protest.

Roxy turned toward Calliope with a raised brow and a significant look.

“They’ve treated me better than most people, dove,” Calliope answered, “especially given my circumstances.”

“Gotta explain, Callie.”

“They’ve given me work when I needed it without requesting blood samples.”

“Didn’t fuckin’ _need_ one after I busted your mouth,” Dave grumbled.

“You did _what_?” Roxy demanded loudly, slamming her hands on the table as she shot to her feet.

Calliope reached out, one arm going behind Roxy’s back, to grab her elbows and pull her back to sitting. “Please don’t make a scene about it. I commented on Jane’s horns—he thought it was an insult.”

“Her horns?” She pointed at them. “They look like tined spoons, so what?”

Jane snatched Dave’s hand before he could start to rise again, squeezing tight enough for her claws to pierce his palm. As his blood dripped on the table, she said, “She’s my moirail and she’s just telling the truth. You’re not allowed to attack _either_ of them, deary.” When he settled back in his seat, she uncurled her fingers and turned over his hand. Pulling a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and tying it neatly around his hand, she looked back to the women across the table. “So how long are you going to stay on land, Roxy?”

“Until I get some business done for the empire,” she said.

“Is this about Harley?”

“If she’d stop trying to _kill_ her kismesis, she wouldn’t get in so much damn trouble,” Roxy replied. She leaned against Calliope’s side then, crossing her arms loosely and snuggling against her shoulder. “I’m here to tell her to lay off the assassination attempts, at least until Rosie is ten sweeps.”

“That’s half a sweep away,” said Calliope. “Why until then?”

“’Cause that’s when she gets her six letters and goes into space,” Roxy replied.

“Hoofbeast shit,” Dave snapped. “She’s not going anywhere without me.”

Roxy gave him a sympathetic look. “She's probably gonna take you with her.”

He jabbed his thumb at Jane. "Not without her, too."

"I think you can take her along."

"Look, _fuck_ space," he muttered. "I like how we got things here. Going out and fighting the empire's war is all fine and good, but we run this town. Why should I give that up to fight some suicidal space war? I keep telling Lalonde to knock that shit off, but she's just fucking determined to follow her mom into the Gog damn stars."

Calliope looked at Roxy, who had moved from having her arms crossed to having them wrapped around one of Calliope's. "Do you all refer to the empress in absentia as your mother?"

Roxy shrugged her freer shoulder. "It's fun to call her that."

"You _do_ know that you'll never get within a hundred feet of her, yes?" Jane asked.

"What? Why?"

"Two reasons," Dave said. "One, she shoots seadwellers on sight, and two, her matesprit _smashes_ seadwellers on sight. They ain't gonna listen to you." He jerked his chin toward Calliope. "Maybe they'll listen to her, since they've never seen her before."

Roxy clutched Calliope's arm all the tighter. "I'm not putting her in danger of getting smashed unless it involves booze! Why can't _you_ do it, Davey?"

He shrugged lazily. "They know me. I'm not looking to get smashed. I'll help her _get_ to them, if that's what we're trying to do."

"Give me one really good reason why I should let you send my girl out into the roarbeast's mouth."

"Because I volunteer," said Calliope quietly.

"Okay," Roxy said without looking at her. The response had been so automatic it took her a moment to realize what she said, and she shook her head when she did. "Wait, _what_? _No_! You're not going into danger just for me!"

"If I do, can you convince your moirail to give me a steady job?"

"Doing what?" Jane asked. "I hadn't pegged you to be someone who would want to work in organized crime."

"I can do what I did this afternoon, but on a regular basis. Especially if you're more interested in dealing with rebels now than in dealing with rivals."

"Oh! Our own personal persuader preparing bleatbeasts for the slaughter! Roxy dear, I've been asking her to do just that for the longest time! Please let her do it!"

Roxy looked at Calliope, nervousness in her eyes. “Callie?”

Calliope smiled. “I can do it. Don’t worry.”

————

“Dude, you’re gonna die.”

This statement was delivered by Dave as they made their way through streets that grew grimier as time and distance passed. Calliope would have ignored him had he not shoved his elbow against the small of her back. Stumbling a bit from the force of it, she sighed hard. Once she had adjusted her jacket, she looked at him with a frown.

“That may be true, but I’m going to endeavor to _not_ be killed, thank you kindly,” she replied.

“You know you can’t do it,” he said in turn.

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Why is it that you’re so bloody rude to me all the time?”

He shrugged with a tiny tilt of his head. “’Cause you’re cute when you’re pissy.”

“Dear Gog, you’ve been trying to black flirt with me?”

“Ever since you had the shame globes to insult my lady.”

She sighed hard, head falling back slightly as she rolled her eyes. “For the last time, I wasn’t insulting her!”

“Whatever.” He reached over to slap her on the rear, but she dodged forward and instinctively delivered a backhand fist to his nose. It did not break, but blood spurted out over her hand nonetheless.

“I’m not looking for a black romance,” she said sharply.

He snickered, rubbing at his nose and smearing rustiness all over his hand. “You’d be pretty good at it. Nice hit.”

“Thank you. Now can you please shut up and take me to where Jade and John are?”

“Gimme a kiss?”

She scowled. “I can give you another punch. It’ll be in the mouth this time.”

“Feisty.” He cracked his neck and knuckles, advancing upon her.

“If you spill my blood here, you know what’ll happen,” she hissed. “Let’s not get into blackrom foreplay when we’re in a place that’ll kill us.”

“Fine,” he said, moodiness thick in his voice. As he put his hands in his pockets, he said, “But you gotta tell me something.”

“Oh, all _right_. What is it?”

“How’d you even get to meet little miss princess?”

"I'll tell you if you tell me how you met _your_ moirail."

For a long while, he was silent, staring ahead as he led them ever onward. He remained silent through the meandering alleyways and filth-covered streets, and even unto the point where he stopped in front of a large one storey building. He nodded at it.

"This is Egbert's little shithole," he said. "You'll be going in and asking to watch a match like everyone else. Since you stick out like a thumb of the sorest fucking quality in that goofy ass suit, you're gonna get shit for going down there."

"Will they make me fight?" she asked, nervously adjusting her curved crimson cuff links.

"I don't think so. For once your skinny ass is going to save itself--no one wants to see a skinny chick get picked on in a brawl. Too boring."

Calliope gave him a withering look and sniffed delicately. "Forgive me my trespasses of being boring, but I believe I'm the one with royalty for a matesprit."

"You never told me how you met her, y'know."

" _You_ never told _me_ how you met your moirail, so we're even.” She fidgeted with her jacket a moment before taking a deep breath. “We’ll share stories when I come back. How does that sound?”

“Fine by me, cutie.”

“Oh, do shut up.” She departed before he could make another comment, striding purposefully across the last street and into the building. The moment the door closed behind her, a knife came up against her throat. She lifted her hands and tilted her head back slightly.

“What’re you here for?” the knife-wielder demanded. He was a slim man with brown starting to stain his eyes and horns that curled out and to the side, and his hand was steady enough that Calliope understood he had a great deal of practice doing exactly this.

“I’m here to watch a fight,” she replied. “I was told this is the best place to do so.”

“You a cop?”

She put her two first fingers on the man’s wrist and pushed his hand gently away. “Why on earth would I be a police officer and come _here_? I’m not looking to get killed. All I want is to watch a fight.” When indecision came to his face, she sighed, took her hand away, and pushed harder mentally. “I’m of no threat to you or your establishment.”

His expression clicked over from indecision to smoothness. Nodding once, he said, “You’re a good broad. Come on down.” After he had returned the knife to a sheath on his hip, he gestured for her to follow him. He led her to a doorway at the far side of the wide, deserted barroom and down the stairs beyond it. Whereas the staircase she had gone down at Jane’s was cold and dank, the staircase now was warm and inviting, well lit and echoing with the sound of fists and feet hitting flesh.

The echo became a solid wall of noise when they came out into the building’s basement. They stood on one of the topmost bleachers that overlooked a massive hexagonal ring, closed off by thick, low metal walls with a floor of sand. Two trolls, a man and woman of equal stature, shirtless, and without shoes, stood in the ring, pacing around each other in a slow circle. The screaming Calliope heard was almost entirely comprised of demands for the duo to “stop dancing and get the fuck on with it,” and a small part of her could not help but agree. She had been able to find an open seat on the other side of the arena by the time anything happened.

The woman moved first, lunging forward with a low kick aimed at the man’s right knee. He jerked his leg up and out of the way, but his inability to balance on one leg alone allowed the woman to knock him over with a punch to his chest. He toppled, and she was there in an instant to slam her foot against the wriggler scars on his left side. The yowl he let out spoke of the cracked ribs he had just suffered. The crowd cheered; Calliope gave a brief burst of applause.

But the man was not done. When the woman tried to deliver another kick to fully break his ribs, he rolled to his uninjured side and whipped about to face her on his hands and knees. With a snarl, he leaped at her, claws and fangs at the ready, and got her around the knees. She shouted in pain; something in one knee had wrenched painfully. The pain was distraction enough for the man to act, and he sank his fangs into her thigh. To the sound of her screaming did he wrench his head around like a wild woofbeast, and he came away with a great chunk of pant leg and flesh when she smashed her fist against the base of one of his horns.

Calliope did not cheer at this. She sat there silent and staring at the woman’s dark green blood on the ground, on her leg. Never before had she seen an injury like it; it was dreadfully fascinating. Before she could think on her fascination, a cylinder was pressed up to her side, angled against her so whatever came out of the cylinder would pass through her bloodpusher.

“I’ve never seen you around here before,” said a quiet but cheerful voice. “Tell me your name or the guy next to you gets to have a blood bath.”

“Call,” she answered. She turned to find a woman with long wavy hair sitting next to her, horns like tall howlbeast ears atop her head and glasses-covered eyes filling with bright grass green. She wore a black t-shirt with an outline of a howlbeast’s head in the same shade of green as her eyes, and blue jeans were on her legs. The woman was smiling, and Calliope could see the tiny sharp points at the center of her mouth that belonged to a pair of buck-fangs. Glancing down let her see the handgun against her side.

The woman looked her up and down. “You’re this big and you still only have four letters? How old are you?”

“Nine sweeps.”

“Holy crap.” She sighed, shrugged, and pushed the gun harder against her. “What’re you really doing here?”

“Are you Jade Harley?” she asked in return.

“Yeah. Why do you wanna know?”

“I’m here on behalf of your kismesis.”

Jade jammed the gun up against her side harder, the low thrum of a growl starting up between her bared fangs. “What the fuck does she want? Did you get sent here to kill me?”

With the risk of death as high as it was, Calliope immediately decided the risk of persuasion was worth it. She turned to look at Jade very slowly, holding down her wince when Jade pushed the gun into her ribs even harder. Looking Jade dead in the eye, she said, “I didn’t come here to kill anyone. You don’t want to kill me.”

The moment of hesitation that came in response made Calliope push a little more, and her efforts were rewarded with Jade taking the gun away and holstering it at her hip.

“Okay,” said Jade. “Talk. What’s Lalonde want?”

“Just for you to stop trying to assassinate her, at least until she turns ten.”

“Yeah, turns ten and goes into space,” she scoffed. “Sorry, fuck that noise. If I keep getting kill calls on her, then I’m going to keep trying to kill her.”

“But it’s dangerous for you _and_ your matesprit to keep trying when she’s so close to leaving. If it continues, you may even catch the attention of the empress in absentia.”

Jade laughed outright. “What, you seriously think she cares about her heir? You’re nuts!”

“Either way,” said Calliope, “you need to stop taking these assassination orders on Miss Lalonde. I don’t want to bring her wrath down on the entire city.”

“Then you need to tell the guy selling the hits to stop selling them.”

“And who is that?”

“Dirk Strider.” Calliope frowned; Jade smiled to see it. “You’ve heard his name before, huh?”

“This morning, from a troll who told me how he looks.” She took a deep breath, thought very hard about Roxy, and said, “How can I meet with him?”

Jade hummed in exaggerated thought, working her jaw from side to side in opposition to how she rocked her head. Suddenly, she reached up and flicked the middle of one of Calliope’s horns. The sharp sting of it made her swear aloud, putting a hand at the place where it had been flicked to try and soothe the pain.

“You can’t unless you go through his matesprit,” Jade replied. “Come back in a week if you’re still trying to find him.” She stood then, giving a full-on punch to the same horn she had flicked, and slipped away into the crowd. By the time the pain faded, Calliope found the ring had emptied and the audience was starting to dissipate. With little else for her to accomplish, she followed the others up the stairway and left them behind in the barroom, chattering away about the match and its bloodiness.

Dave stood exactly where he had before, and in the same pose of arms crossed over his chest while he leaned against the wall of a building. He straightened as she drew near, lifting a brow over his shades. He asked, “Well?”

“We have another reason to hunt down Dirk Strider.”

“Sweet.” He tilted his head in a nod to one side. “Let’s go. You owe me a story, remember?”

“As you owe me.” She sighed and rubbed at her aching horn, following him as he started away. “And I believe I owe Jade a smack in the gob the next time we meet.”

He snickered. “I’d love to see that. So tell me straight up—how’d you meet Roxy Lalonde?”

Honestly, she said, “The internet.”

“Bullshit. That ain’t all and I know it.”

“It’s the truth,” she protested, still massaging her horn. The effort seemed to be in vain, and so she abandoned it. “She hacked my Trollian because she thought my text color was unique. When I told her it wasn’t my blood color, she said she didn’t care about the hemospectrum and just wanted a new friend.”

“How old were you guys?”

“Four for her and—five for me.”

He whistled. “You morons have known each other that long and you’re only just starting to throw hearts around?”

“I’ve moved between half a dozen cities over the course of the last—four sweeps. I never had a lusus to take care of me. You know what my blood is. Hearts and spades are typically the furthest thing from my mind, Strider.”

Dave shrugged. “Just letting you know, I don’t really feel like turning you in for the whole blood thing.”

“I’m still not interested in blackrom right now.”

“When do you think you’ll be interested?”

“Not for a while, so don’t get your hopes up. What I _am_ interested in is how _you_ met Rose Lalonde and became her moirail.”

He sighed noisily through his nose. “Gog, you’re annoying. I can’t believe you seriously don’t want blackrom.”

“We’re not rivals, you nitwit, and I doubt we ever really will be. You may hate me for what I said about Jane, but I don’t particularly hate you. And we agreed to share stories, so I expect a story.”

“Fuck, _fine_ , fine. Pushy broad.” He swayed his arms with his hands in his pockets, elbows coming fore and back. “She’s nine and a half, right? I’m seven and a half. Way back when I was…maybe two, two and a half, I went down to the ocean with my lusus. And who was sitting on a rock in the water but our planetside empress, still just a little kid.

“So,” he said in a drawn-out breath, “she looked upset about something, so I went and was a little dumbass and went walking out into the water to see what was wrong. ‘Course, I couldn’t fucking _swim_ , so she wound up saving my ass and dragging me back to shore. And we’re been taking care of each other’s shit ever since.”

“No one has ever given you grief for being a lowblood moirail to the empress?”

“No, because Rose just up and executes them unless I tell her not to.” He smirked. “I don’t really tell her not to. It’s a moirail benefit to have people killed for you. Not like you’d ever know.”

“Roxy seems determined to play both roles with me, so maybe I’ll receive that benefit sometime soon.”

“Is that a threat?” he asked with a grin.

“Oh, for the love of— _no_!”

As if in aggravated protest, Dave went quiet for the rest of the journey, leaving Calliope in what she considered blessed silence. They returned neither to Calliope’s flat nor to the eatery, but to Jane’s offices. Upon their arrival, Roxy launched herself off her place atop Jane’s desk, all but sprinted across the room, and leaped up to wrap her arms around Calliope’s neck with a cry of, “You’re okay!”

“What did you find out?” Jane asked.

Calliope, bent over by Roxy’s steadfast refusal to let go of her neck, replied, “She’s being hired by Dirk Strider.”

A deep, fang-baring scowl took over Jane’s face, and her cheeks turned bright blue with fury. “That arrogant little bastard.”

Dave put a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Gimme the word, babe, and his head comes off and gets burned.”

Jane smiled at him, cheeks still a bit blue, before looking at Calliope. “Did you find out anything else?”

“Meeting him requires an audience with his matesprit. He’s evidently going to go to the brawling arena next week.”

“According to who?”

“Jade Harley. She admitted this with me at gunpoint.”

Her smile widened. “You’re so damn _good_ at persuading people.” She clapped her hands a moment. “I’m so excited to have you working for us!”

“You better keep her out of trouble,” Roxy said, looking over her shoulder with a pout.

“As safe as she can be in this line of work.”

Calliope smiled in reassurance. “I’ll be all right. And I’ll be very careful when I go back next week.”

“Hey, no, nuh-uh!” Roxy said, letting go of her neck in order to grip her lapels. “We’re sending Davey-boy to do that!”

“They’d recognize him too easily,” Jane cut in. “If we want an audience with Dirk Strider, we have to send someone he won’t guess is there to kill him.”

“Wha—kill him?” Calliope asked, throat growing tight enough to make her words squeak out. “No—no, I’m not going to kill him! In the first place, I don’t have any weapons!”

“You and Roxy can go buy one tomorrow. She’ll get you the best money can buy.”

“We’re not even going to plan this? His lackey said he can explode things at will! I’m not a hitman like Dave!”

“We’ll train you.”

“Don’t you think that this isn’t _safe_?”

Roxy turned about to look at Jane, frowning deeply. “Yeah, what did I just say about keeping my Callie safe?”

Jane sighed, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. “ _Fine_. We’ll make a plan to bring him out in the open.”

“Which is?” Calliope asked.

“Oh, I know!” Roxy said. “We’ll convince him that you want to join his cause!”

After a long period of silence from all parties, Calliope said, “That may be difficult, seeing as how I said I was there on _behalf_ of Rose Lalonde.”

“But that’s why it’ll be perfect! You’ll say that you’re sick of being a lackey for the empire and you want to help bring it down!”

Again, silence reigned. Eventually, Dave said, “Okay, sure, why not. Sometimes the dumbest plans are the best.”

“Don’t make me slap you, Davey.”

Jane laughed. “One of these days, I’ll probably let you. So we’re decided on what we’re going to try to do?”

“I suppose we are,” Calliope said, voice weak.

“Good! Then we’ll meet here tomorrow and start working on the plan.” She pointed at Roxy with a turned over hand, elbow cupped in her other hand. “And I say tomorrow because _you_ , missy, need to get yourself in either water or sopor. You’re starting to look a little parched.”

She stuck out her tongue, but only a moment. “Fine. We’ll see you tomorrow.” She crossed the room to hug Jane and scoop up two things from the desk in quick succession. As she returned, Calliope recognized the things tucked under her arm as her husktop and its power cable. Before she could ask anything, Roxy took her by the hand and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

“To where?” Calliope asked, even as she let Roxy lead her onward and out of the office.

“To my hostelry,” was the reply. “My guards won’t let me stay with you in your place, so you’re going to stay with me in mine.”

“Stay with you?”

“The ‘coon’s gonna be big enough for two, don’t worry.”

Calliope pulled Roxy back to make her stop, and let go of her hand in an attempt to cool her burning, blood-showing cheeks by pressing her palms to them. “We’d be sleeping in the same recuperacoon?”

“Well, duh. I’m not making you go dry.”

“Oh. All—all right.” She went quiet then, offering Roxy her hand. They made their way out of the building, being joined by the two imperial guards that had been with Roxy upon their first meeting. From there they journeyed out of the grimmer part of the city and westward toward the sea. They went some distance north after a time, and soon entered cleaner, brighter streets. Once they reached these streets, it was only a matter of time before they reached the hostelry. It was a vast, tall building, all of clean, dark red stone. Doormen stood outside the clean glass entryway, and they bowed as Roxy approached.

One of the guards offered Roxy a key card once they had entered an elevator, and once they had arrived at their floor, the guards remained outside the door to which Roxy led Calliope. The room they entered was many times the size of Calliope’s flat, with a separate ablution room, a large television hanging on the wall over a broad, low dresser, and a massive recuperacoon tucked away in the corner of the room further from the window. A pair of large suitcases stood by a wide, long couch, and a desk stood beside that. Calliope looked at the suitcases before turning to Roxy with a raised brow.

Before she could speak, Roxy released her hand and put her fingers on her mouth for silence. She went first to the desk to set down the husktop , and then to one of the suitcases. From within it, she drew out two small boxes. Both of them were set atop the dresser, and their switches flicked. A sharp keening sound shot through the room for one second; tiny pops sounded from around the room afterward. Roxy smirked and clapped her hands clean of nothing whatsoever.

“There we go,” she said. “Now we can talk.”

“What did you just do?”

“Destroyed any bugs that were in the room.” She lifted one of the boxes and waggled it in her hand. “This is my own design. I got sick of my rooms getting bugged whenever I came on land.”

“And the other one?”

“Cancels out any sound made in the room, so even if they’re listening at the walls or the door, they can’t hear us.”

“Why in the world would you need to make the room silent?”

Roxy looked at her with bafflement on her face. “Are you for real?”

She blushed again, this time from neck to ears. “D-don’t you think we’re going a touch fast? We only—only just met.”

The bafflement changed to understanding. “That’s why you got embarrassed about sleeping in the same recuperacoon.”

“Well…yes.” She fidgeted. “I’m sorry.” She smiled nervously, hands starting to twist her cuff links. “I—you really want to do something like that with _me_?”

Roxy crossed over to her, reached up to cup her face, and smiled gently. “Of course I do! You’re a sexy beast!”

“But—”

“No buts unless it’s your sweet butt. You are just as sexy as me, okay?”

“All…all right.”

She patted Calliope’s cheeks as gently as she smiled at her. “And we don’t have to do anything aside from just sleep in the same ‘coon until you’re ready.”

Calliope smiled and felt her eyes burn. “Thank you.”

Roxy pulled her down for a kiss. When they parted, she grinned. “And there’s another reason I want nothing we talk about to leave the room!”

“Which is?”

She winked. “I’ll tell you in the evening. Let’s just go to bed.”

Her intrigue and confusion would have been more than enough to compel her to ask, but her exhaustion and renewed headache were a more convincing argument. She nodded wearily, and marveled at how Roxy practically bounced off to the desk. Even as she shuffled over, she watched Roxy plug in the husktop and power it on.

“What’s your password, Callie?” she asked.

“Here, let me.” Because Roxy, smiling and refusing to move aside, did not give her any other option, she reached her arms around Roxy’s shoulders and typed in her password. Daring took her, and she wrapped her arms around Roxy properly. She tilted her head down to breathe in the scent of her hair. Roxy purred and snuggled back into the embrace, even as she opened up Calliope's old, outdated edition of Trollian.

"Why are you opening that?" Calliope asked.

"In case we get messages during the day."

"Who the bloody hell would be awake enough to send _us_ messages?"

Roxy shrugged and turned around neatly. Standing up on her toes, she kissed Calliope's cheeks one after the other. "You never know. Come on, let's get to sleep. I'm wiped out."

"You certainly don't seem it, dove."

"You'll see it once we get in the slime, I promise. I sleep like a brick."

"Bricks don't sleep, though."

She tapped the bridge of Calliope's nose firmly. "Hyperbole, Callie! Come on, get with the program."

"But that was a simile."

Roxy opened her mouth to argue, but noticed the smile on Calliope's face. It was shyly teasing, and she laughed to see it. She reached up and pinched Calliope's cheeks, then, before moving her hands to her lapels and pulling her down for yet more kisses. Following the line of her lapels brought her to the jacket's buttons, and she undid them fumblingly until Calliope caught her hands and stopped her.

"What?" she asked in simple confusion.

Her blush returned full force, if not greater than before. "I thought we agreed that was going a little fast."

"Oh! No, no, I'm not undressing you for sexy times!" She smiled and bumped her forehead gently against Calliope's. "I'm undressing you because it's you and I want to see you." She turned their hands to entwine their fingers. "Is that cool?"

"I…I suppose."

Her smile became a frowning pout. "It's not going to work if it's just supposing. Consent or nothing, sweet cheeks."

"What happens if I say no?"

Roxy lifted her hands and put them over her own eyes. "Then I keep my peepers shut until we're in the slime and we can't tell who's who."

Heat that bordered on painful filled her chest cavity; she wrapped her arms around Roxy and held her close. "Thank you."

"Keep saying it an' you'll wear it out, y'know," Roxy giggled. She slipped her hands inside Calliope's opened jacket and touched the buckle of one suspender. "Are we cool?"

"Um...is it okay if _I_ take off my pants tonight?”

She smiled, kissed the tip of her nose, and replied, “Sure.” She stepped away, lifting her hands over her head. “D’you wanna undress me before that?”

Calliope gaped at her, throat going instantly and painfully dry. She choked upon trying to speak, but Roxy did not laugh at her. She only smiled invitingly, not a hint of shyness in her body. Very slowly, Calliope reached out to touch the bottom of her gray shirt. When there was no refusal forthcoming, she pulled the shirt up and over her head, mindful of her ears and horns. Next was her bra, which she unclasped with unsure fingers. All of her grew unsure when she slid her fingers up to the straps and made to pull them down Roxy’s arms, but still Roxy showed no shyness. Calliope swallowed as she turned to set the clothes on the chair at the desk, but she did not turn back.

Roxy giggled. “You can look, silly.”

“I’m, ah, I’m working up the nerve.”

She laughed and moved closer to wrap her arms around Calliope for a tight hug. “Do you need me to take off my skirt myself?”

Voice cracking, she replied, “Could you?”

“Am I still allowed to take off _your_ shirt?”

She no longer trusted her voice, and so she nodded once. Turning about when she was instructed, she let Roxy take off her jacket and hang it on the back of the chair. Turning again, she stood by patiently as her suspenders were slipped off her shoulders and her t-shirt untucked. She had to sink down entirely to her knees for Roxy to take her shirt off without it catching on her horns, and even she could not keep from chuckling at how Roxy still had to stand on her tiptoes to get it all the way off.

“Seriously, why the fuck are you so tall?” she grumbled.

“Luck?”

She snorted in dismissal and offered her hand to help her back to her feet. When she was standing, she gestured for her to turn about once again. She undid the clasps to Calliope’s bra then, dropping them both atop her own clothes on the chair. There was only one movement Calliope made then: she crossed her arms over her chest. She did not turn around, and her head tipped forward.

Roxy leaned in and pressed a kiss to the center of Calliope’s back. “You don’t have to turn around.”

“I’m sorry.”

She kissed her back again. “Don’t have to be. Want me to turn out the lights and get in the ‘coon first?”

“Could you?”

“Absolutely. Gimme one second.” She went first to the room’s door and closed up all the locks. Next came a circuit of the room to turn out each and every light. Last was the stripping off of her shoes, skirt, and underwear before she finally clambered into the recuperacoon. True to her word before, she closed her eyes and put her hands over them.

Calliope let out a silent sigh, uncrossing her arms slowly and turning about. She bent down to undo the laces of her ratty sneakers, slipping her feet free when she was done. Before she could start in on her trousers, her husktop chimed.

“See?” Roxy laughed, hands still over her eyes. “I knew it was a good idea to have your computer on!”

“It’s probably just a spam-bot.” She tilted the screen back further to see it clearly.

—undyingUmbrage [uu] began jeering uraniumUmbra [UU]—

uu: HELLO CALLIOPE.  
uu: LET’S PLAY A NEW GAME.  
uu: FOR ALL OF ALTERNIA.  
uu: AND YOu CAN’T SAY *NO*.  
uu: BECAuSE WE’VE ALREADY STARTED.

Calliope slammed the husktop shut.

“Callie?”

“It’s nothing. It’s a spam-bot.” She took off her trousers and underwear and dropped them on the chair without bothering to fold them neatly. Within seconds she was climbing inside the recuperacoon to sink in beside Roxy. She was grabbed hold of just as quickly, with Roxy snuggling her head up beneath her chin. The snuggling paused for a moment when Roxy felt the trembling suffused in Calliope’s body.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Are you still really nervous about sleeping together? I can go on the other side of the ‘coon if—”

Calliope wrapped her arms around Roxy and held her as close as she could. “Please don’t.” She buried her face in Roxy’s hair and whispered, “Please don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I so enjoy this story.


	3. broken crown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which plans for the day are discussed; a secret is questioned; a weapon is procured; a message is delivered; and something terrible happens.

Running was while she was best at, in the end. She did it night and day, all the way down into her dreams.

It was in darkness too deep for even troll eyes to penetrate that she sprinted. She knew it had to be a dream; she'd covered miles at top speed without growing out of breath. It didn't matter. Her bloodpusher slammed around her chest, and her blood was ice. Sweat poured down the back of her neck. Her bare feet were bloody and left behind prints of her long-clawed toes. She thought she heard her name and began to weep out of fear.

He was there. She knew he was there, and everywhere. Everywhere she went, he went. He always found her, he was going to find her then. Any moment, any moment, and she looked up into the sky fully expecting to see him descend as if on wings, all fangs and smiles. A hand closed on her shoulder, stopping her dead, and she screamed aloud.

" _Callie_!" 

She opened her eyes. Someone was curled up tight atop her, their weight bearing them both deeper into the 'coon. The ache in her body told her of how violently she had been thrashing despite the quality of the slime. She went still immediately, chest heaving, and stared up at the ceiling. There were no water stains or cracks in cheap plaster. There was someone in the recuperacoon with her. Calliope was incredibly confused, and not a little frightened. When Roxy sat up top of her stomach, utterly nude and splendid for it, her panic grew significantly.

"Are you done flipping out?" Roxy asked. She put her hands on Calliope's cheeks, holding her face steady when she tried to look in every other direction but Roxy's. "Babe, come on, you're havin' a straight up freakout on me. Tell me if you're okay."

"I don't – no, can't just – I'm still – " 

"Shh, shh," Roxie said gently, pushing air between her fangs. She put her forehead to Calliope's and stroked her horns, one after the other. Even when her attempts at calming seem to fail and Calliope broke down into tears, Roxy did not give up. She slipped off of Calliope's chest and curled around her instead, pulling her head to her chest.

"Roxy's got ya," she murmured, running her sticky hands through Calliope's hair. She gathered slime onto the tips of her fingers and massaged it into the base of Calliope's horns. "You're okay, you're right here with your girl." 

Unable to think of what else to do, Calliope wrapped her arms around Roxy and held on tight. She let out a sob when Roxy hummed a quiet tune, but swallowed down the next few in favor of holding even tighter. It took a great deal of time, but eventually Calliope stopped crying and started to breathe calmly. Roxy, ever observant, lifted Calliope's head the moment she noticed. 

"Doin' okay?" she asked, smiling hopefully.

"I...I think," Calliope said, sniffing meekly. She reached out to rub away the tears on her face, but Roxy pushed her hand side. Avoiding the splotches of slime on her skin, she licked off the pale streaks of green and tapped a kiss to the end of her nose when she had finished.

"Okay, let's get cleaned up!" Roxy said with a grin.

For a moment, Calliope was too blindsided by Roxy's ability to become cheerful in an instant to react. Then she recalled her own nudity and blushed darkly. Roxy's grin grew broader.

"You are seriously so cute," she said. "Come on, nothing's gotta be sexy about it. 'Sides," she added, "you've got slime all up in your hair and that's a bitch to get out if it dries." 

"Who's fault is that?" Calliope asked with a raised brow.

Roxy shrugged, and it was guilty and innocent all at once. "But really, Callie, we gotta get cleaned up. It's gonna be a busy day for us."

She had both forgotten that and had been grateful for forgetting. A message from him tended to drive out anything else that was in her mind. She hesitated in asking, "Busy how?"

"Well, first we're going out for a big fancy breakfast."

"You're obsessed with food, I swear."

"Hey, eating right made me the sexy lady I am today." She brought in her arms slightly, making her breasts rise under Calliope's head. "You're not bugged by it, right?" 

"Not at all," Calliope said, words squeaking out of her mouth.

Roxy snickered. "Thought so. And your booty is crazy skinny, so I want to fill you out a little." Despite the slime in her hair, she planted a quick kiss on the top of Calliope's head. "Not that you're not a sexy beast already, but it's unhealthy." 

Unable to feel so much as rueful, Calliope smiled. "All right, all right. Let's get cleaned up." She paused. "Can–can you not look?"

"I'll do you one better," Roxy replied, and hauled herself out of the 'coon. The slaps of her slime-coated feet on the stone floor were loud with her speed, and she returned shortly with a fluffy white towel in hand. Grinning, she said, "You can wear it in the bath, too!" 

"Bath?"

Roxy raised a brow and took a deep breath to flare the gills on her neck.

Calliope's face burned. "Oh."

"'S not something to get embarrassed over, silly. But come on, I got a hankerin' for my bath, and a bigger one to have you in there with me." 

Doing her best to keep from being sheepish, Calliope took hold of the towel and wrapped herself in it while standing. She clambered out of the recuperacoon and realized, when her feet came down on the cool floor, that Roxy had not brought a towel for herself. Instead she stood there, smiling brightly, with slime clinging to her. With an ease that did not match how long they had been in close proximity to one another, she threw her arms around Calliope's neck and pulled her down for a proper kiss.

"Okay, now for the water!" she chirped upon their parting. She all but dragged Calliope to the ablution chamber, and Calliope's jaw dropped when they stepped into the room. It was more than twice the size of her entire hiveblock, with a massive portion of that space being devoted to a single bathtub, already filled with water. Roxy avoided it entirely, skipping merrily into the shower across the room. She beckoned for Calliope to follow her, and waited until she was joined before turning on the water. Cool water poured down onto them, the last shards of heat invigorating to Calliope. Roxy groaned aloud, stretching her arms over her head. When she caught Calliope staring, face bright in blushing, she smirked and stretched a little more, pushing out her chest. 

"You like what you see?" she asked.

Calliope swallowed hard and nodded once.

Roxy stopped stretching and gestured to herself. "All yours."

"And you still don't think we're moving a touch fast, love?"

She opened her mouth, but stopped short. "Wait, what did you call me?"

Shyly, she admitted, "Love." 

Upon hearing it, Roxy's eyes grew bright. She wrapped her arms around Calliope and buried her face in her chest, snuggling into the wet towel. She drew back just enough to say, "Love you, too, Callie." 

It was enough for her mouth to go dry and her hands to grow brave. She caught hold of Roxy's face, leaned down, and kissed her gently. Roxy pushed back, not minding her fangs, and cut into Calliope's lower lip. Before she could jerk away an automatic response, Roxy wrapped her lips in hers and lapped away the blood.

"Sorry," she murmured. "It's hard to really concentrate when I kiss you." 

"I have to admit it's getting harder to care when you kiss me like that," Calliope said in reply.

"Okay!" Roxy said suddenly, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm puttin' a ban on kissing until we get out of the bath 'cause otherwise we're not leaving!"

"Fair enough."

"Now crouch or kneel or something so I can wash out your hair." 

She obeyed, kneeling on the floor, and closed her eyes. Purring was the easiest thing to do with gentle hands in her hair, and Calliope did so and loudly. Roxy giggled and took much longer than strictly necessary. When she was done, she plopped down before Calliope, legs crossed crookedly and mouth open in a grin. She tipped her head forward and let Calliope wash out her hair, unaware of the blush on Calliope's face because she was tracing idle curlicues on her bony knees.

"You're very lovely, you know," said Calliope, voice low and soft.

"Yeah," Roxy sighed. "But it sounds best coming from you." She lifted her head, peeking out from beneath her sodden hair. "Do you like it when I call you a sexy beast?"

Her blush darkened. "I find it hard to believe."

"What? Why?"

She gave Roxy a hard stare, not weakened in the slightest by her persistent flush. "I believe you were the one who called me unhealthy."

"Well...yeah, I mean, you're skinny as hell, but that doesn't mean you're not sexy." She leaned in to plant a kiss on Calliope's closer ear, and when she drew back she whispered, "And you're my Calliope."

For a long moment, Calliope fought down the brilliant urge to cry. Whether it was out of misery or joy she did not know, and she swallowed down her sobs and sniffed back her tears. It was easy to smile, though, and even easier to give Roxy a kiss.

"Hey," Roxy said when they parted, "I thought I put a ban on kissing until we were out of the bath."

The smile Calliope gave her was knowing. "Were you really going to adhere to that rule?"

"Okay, no." She leaned in to kiss Calliope again, grinning wide when she drew back. "Now let's get in the bath. I bet it's crazy warm." She got to her feet easily and offered Calliope both hands. Once she was on her feet, towel still wrapped around her, Roxy abruptly darted off to the bath and leaped in with a great splash. Calliope stared a moment before giving up on understanding, and followed after her.

The bath, like everything in the hostelry room, was enormous. Calliope had guessed that upon entering the room, but she hadn't realized how deep it was as well. When she arrived after picking her way through the puddles on the floor, she had to lean far over to look straight down the water, for Roxy was able to dive that far down. Steps led down into the deep, and Calliope sank down on him to sit with her head and shoulders above water. A few moments later, Roxy joined her, swinging her legs slowly.

"Love?" Calliope asked.

"Yeah?"

"This is very abrupt and I apologize for it, but you said it's going to be a busy day. What, aside from breakfast, are we going to be doing?"

"Oh! Yeah, I just stopped talking about it." She slicked back her hair, tucking it carefully behind her ears. "So first is breakfast, and then we go to Janey's."

Her stomach fell. "Why?"

"Because we gots to get you a weapon, that's why. I'm not gonna let my girl go without anymore. It's dangerous as shit here."

"I can't get a weapon," Calliope protested.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because they need blood samples to register ownership."

Casually Roxy shrugged, and casually she said, "Then we won't get anything registered. Janey'll know who to go to." She waggled her eyebrows and nudged Calliope in the side. "Or did you want to go with Davey-boy?"

"I would sooner bite off my own thumbs."

She laughed and leaned against Calliope's side. "You are so cute."

Calliope sighed, but smiled as she moved on. "And after that?"

"Then we gotta figure out how to convince Dirk that we're on his side."

She grimaced. "I'm not looking forward to that meeting with him."

"I know, right? And I mean we're trying to convince him for real, so it's even harder!"

Silence. She looked slowly to Roxy and found her staring at the water, cheeks puffed in concentration. "I beg your pardon?"

Her concentration faded for confusion that she finally met Calliope's gaze. "Did I not tell you yesterday?"

"Didn't you tell me that you were serious about being treasonous?" Calliope asked in return. "No, love, I'm afraid you failed to mention that fact."

"Oh. Oops."

"' _Oops_ '?" she demanded. "That's something of a _bloody important_ detail to forget to mention! Why didn't you tell me before so I could refuse to help _then_?"

Roxy shrank back with being wounded; her ears folded in on themselves as they drooped. "You're not gonna help?"

"I am a limeblood! How many times do I have to keep saying that?"

The hurt changed over to bristling. "Maybe until it starts to actually matter! Me and Rosie don't want this dumb hemocaste shit in place anymore! Why aren't you all over helping us out to get rid of this blood problem?"

"You're treating this like a game, the lot of you! I won't be part of it!" She got to her feet and tried to turn away, but Roxy grabbed her by the wrist and held her where she stood.

"This isn't about us at all, is it," Roxy said without asking. She stood as well and laced their fingers together. Gingerly, she said, "I looked at that message. From last night."

Something very deep inside Calliope cracked. She pulled her hand away and snarled, "You did _what_?"

More than before was Roxy hurt, and she tried to salvage what they'd had. "Callie, why didn't you ever tell me that there was someone after you? I could've–"

"You could've not fucking spied on me is what you could've done! What possessed you to do something like that?"

Roxy had to take a moment to recover from the shouting from a former soft-speaker, but she answered it with a shout of her own. "Because you were fuckin' panicking before we went to sleep! I had to know who did that to you! You have to let me help!"

"No, _you_ have to let me _leave_! You have to let me leave and you have to promise never to come after me!"

"Fuck no! You think I'm going to give up on my lady when it's taken an ass-long time to even get to visit you at all? I'm gonna–"

Calliope grabbed Roxy by the shoulders with such fierceness that her claws cut into her skin. "He will kill you! The moment he knows about he is the moment he will start to conspire for your death! You have to let me leave!"

Roxy refused to do so much as wince in pain from the cuts. She stared head-on at Calliope and said, "Make me."

The thing inside her cracked further. "What?"

"You heard me, Callie. Make me let you leave. Me, who's got all the planet-side army and navy and all the drones I want at my disposal. Tell me how you're gonna keep me from trying to help you. Make me not care about you as much as I do." She reached up and pried Calliope's fingers out of her skin. "You're not getting rid of me, and you being scared just tells me that I need to stay." She brought her hands to her mouth and began to lick off the blood. Pausing, she murmured, "Let me help you, love."

It broke entirely, and she was left numbly hollow. She stared at Roxy, only tangentially aware of what she was doing. The word "love" echoed in her head over and over. Eventually she pulled her still bloody hands out of Roxy's grasp and wrapped her arms around her. She did not cry, but instead trembled ceaselessly.

"I don't want him to find you," she whispered.

"I'll hit him in the face if he does," Roxy replied. She grinned a moment but it faded when Calliope did not laugh. She bit down on a sigh and hugged her tight in return. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head.

"Can we talk about it some other time? Maybe later?"

"Later," she mumbled against Roxy's hair.

"Okay." She let herself wince when one of Calliope's arms bumped against cuts. "Let's get cleaned up and go have breakfast, huh? Getting a full stomach'll do you good."

Calliope nodded and let her go. Seeing the blood smeared on the insides of her elbows startled her, just enough to break some of her hollow shock. She reached out for Roxy's shoulders and stopped shy of touching. Instead, she hurried away for the towels stacked and open cabinet by the door and returned with one in hand. She held it against one set of cuts.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have done that."

Roxy shrugged, but there was still something anxious in her smile. She swore faintly when Calliope returned the towel to the cuts and pressed a little more firmly. "So..."

"So," Calliope said weakly.

She pouted a frown. "I'm not _mad_. And I'm sure as fuck not going to just give up on this umbrage guy, okay? I don't like that someone is scaring you this bad with one stupid message." She turned complacently to show her other shoulder when Calliope took away the towel. "But we'll talk about it later."

"What'll we talk about now, then?"

Roxy consider this with a hum. When she came to an answer, she smiled and said, "How about you needing new duds? You are crazy hot in a suit, so I say we go get you a new one today."

It was not the answer she expected, and in her yet stunned state she could only stare in confusion. The emptiness in her eyes was frightening, and Roxy reached up to put her hands on her cheeks.

" _Calliope_ ," she said, voice firm. She patted her with a gentleness to counter her voice. "Babe, listen. Whatever's going on's gotta stop. Tell me what I need to do to help you out."

She swallowed. "I – I don't...know? I don't know what's...can – can you talk to me?"

"Easiest thing in the world."

She hesitated. "Can you say my name?"

"Calliope, I'll say your name a million times if it'll keep you here with me."

A smile finally returned her face. "Thank you."

\-------

Three hours later, she was full of rich and remarkably unhealthy breakfast fare, and she was the owner of a brand-new suit. She kept running her hands over the lapels, both smoothing them needlessly and to feel the embroidered sigil over one her bloodpusher. It was a vibrant shade of green, just a few off her blood color. Her black undershirt had _buttons_ ; it was the first shirt she'd ever owned with glassy smooth buttons. The one she the one thing she had truly left up to Roxy was the matter of the thing at her neck. Roxy had thought a regular necktie was too stuffy and boring; a bowtie was much better and "totes adorable." Thus, she had a red bowtie knotted neatly under her collar. She did her best to keep from playing with it too much.

It was in one of the few good parts of town that they strolled then. Calliope chanced to look at Roxy from the corner of one eye. She claimed jealousy upon seeing Calliope's new suit and snatched up the nearest thing she called "cool": a long, striped scarf in alternating bands of differently shaded purple. Calliope found it quite fetching, and earned herself a kiss for saying so.

But though they walked hand-in-hand, they were quiet. Despite the food in her stomach and the pushing away of the issue, Calliope could no longer completely ignore him. She looked at Roxy over and over, fearful of holding her hand so brazenly in the open. Anyone could be watching, and so many people already were, fascinated by the seatroll among them. Whoever now was with him could be nearby, could be the blueblood the gave him a sidelong look as they passed her by. When they arrived to Jane's offices, with its severed heads decorating the exterior, she was actually relieved.

Roxy threw herself at Jane for a hug when Dave let them through the door. Jane laughed and reached up to stroke Roxy's horns, waving briefly at Calliope. Dave jerked his chin in her direction before he took his place by the door.

"Oh, it's always so nice to see you both!" Jane said once Roxy disentangled their limbs. She gave Calliope a slow once over, brows rising at what she found. She turned back to Roxy and said, "Why don't you spoil _me_ with fancy clothes?"

"'Cause you got money to pay the bills," Roxy replied. "My girl doesn't get enough cash."

Jane chuckled. "In a little while, I'll be paying her plenty."

Calliope's gut clenched up painfully on her breakfast. "Why is that?"

"You'll see. We've still got to catch them first." She clapped her hands quietly before lacing her fingers together and aiming her forefingers at Calliope. "But I got a text a little while ago saying you need a weapon."

She looked to Roxy, who shrugged. "It was boring waiting while you got fitted for your clothes."

"I have the perfect place in mind," Jane said. "It's where we get all our unregistered weapons. Shall we?"

It was not very far from the offices that they went, barely five blocks. It was, however, into the shadiest part of the city that their path took them. Calliope recall the streets as ones she had traversed request to purchase sopor what seemed like weeks ago. Dave led the way one hand perpetually on the help of his sword. Jane was at his side, humming quietly. Roxy held tight to Calliope's hand, but it was not out of fear. She seemed, to Calliope, constantly on the verge of snarling at any troll who dared to look at Calliope the wrong way. What defined the "wrong way" was impenetrable, as simple passersby were scrutinized viciously.

"Roxy, it's all right," she said quietly. "No one's going to do anything with Strider around." She successfully fought down the urge to pas her fingers over Roxy's ears and said, "And I think they may be frightened of you more than anything else."

"They better be if they know what's good for them," grumbled Roxy. She said no more and did not change how she acted. Once or twice Calliope had to physically stop her from charging after trolls who happened to spit when they were within a five foot radius. They arrived without bloodshed, but only just. Dave turned into the alleyway between two rundown buildings and guided them down a flight of stairs cut into the ground. A metal door speckled with rust awaited them, and Dave rapped out of complicated tune on it. It creaked open slowly to reveal a small woman in a ratty t-shirt and black pants. The dyed acrylic of her sigil was nearly all peeled off, but Calliope was able to discern the dark indigo color. Her insides went cold all at once, and she knew there was no psychic manipulation at play.

The indigoblood looked at them as though she could not understand their presence. She extended her hand, rocking up on her toes, and touched Jane's horns. Next she turned to Dave, who held out his fist. She bumped it with hers, and then shifted her attention to Calliope. Unsure of what to do, she offered the indigoblood a trembling hand. However, when the woman touched her, she flinched and tried to pull her hand back.

It happened in a heartbeat. The indigoblood clamped down on her fingers, fracturing all four. Before Calliope had time to howl, Roxy tackled the woman to the floor with a scream of fury and slammed her fists into her face.

"Shit, Lalonde, _no_!" Dave shouted. He hurried over and yanked Roxy off the indigoblood before she could throw any more punches. She swung her foot back and up between his legs, but he managed to wedge in one knee in time to stop her heel from slamming into both sheathed bone bulge and nook.

Jane hurried over, standing on her toes and holding fast to Roxy's horns while Dave held fast to Roxy. "No, sweetie, no! That's what Zennal does! She sees things – touching is her way of figuring out if she's just hallucinating!"

"Why the _fuck_ did she break Callie's hand?" Roxy shrieked.

"She had to make sure she's real! Roxy, she's indigo, she didn't mean anything by it!"

Still lying on the floor, Zennal began to laugh in a manner Calliope had never heard: tiny clicks of noise where the laughs should be. She sat up slowly, blood pouring down her face from a badly broken nose and cuts inside her mouth. When she stood up, she dusted herself off, and then went to Calliope. Roxy shrieked again when she held out her hand to Calliope, but Zennal ignored her. At Calliope's refusal to take her hand, she grinned and opened her mouth. There was no tongue inside; a crude and poorly healed stump was the only sign she'd had a tongue at all.

Despite the pain, Calliope was intrigued. She asked, "Who did you betray?"

She smiled and shrugged. When she offered her hand again, Calliope took it and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

"She won't tell us about it," Jane explained. "She's one of the only planet-side trolls over ten sweeps, so even though she's a traitor, her blood and age still gets us all the weapons we need." She looked at Roxy. "Are you going to stay calm now?"

"You sorry for doing that to my girl?" She snapped.

Zennal tipped her head infinitesimally to one side.

"That means 'yes,'" said Dave.

"Fine," Roxy muttered. She straightened her scarf when Dave released her and gave Zennal the filthiest look she could. "So what do you have?"

Zennal ignored her in favor of looking closely at Calliope. She began to pace around her, and Calliope took the chance to examine her in turn. The indigoblood was unkempt and unwashed; Calliope could smell the pungent tang of sopor that had dried and never properly been cleaned off of skin. She was extremely twitchy, and when she gestured in the air, tracing shapes ever Calliope's body, her hands trembled. Even her horns, corkscrewed and two-pronged at the ends, seemed unhealthy: dull and faded, they were.

"How much rock candy do you _give_ her?" Calliope asked Jane.

"We give her whatever she wants," she replied, watching Zennal turn and shamble away to another room. "She told me once that it keeps the hallucinations at bay."

"So she's cracked out, what? Ninety percent of the time?" Roxy asked, incredulity thick in her voice.

"Ninety, ninety-five," Dave said.

The anger brewing in Roxy came to a halt so suddenly she visibly jerked. She was quiet when Zennal returned with something hidden up the sleeve of her shirt. Zennal paid this no heed, instead walking straight to Jane. She held out her free hand, eyes walking a strange line between being half-lidded or popping wide open. Jane reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a plastic baggie filled with what looks like multicolored shards of rock and pebbles. She handed it over, and Zennal pulled it open immediately to cram the largest shard and her mouth. The crack that rang out made everyone, Dave and Jane included, wince, but Zennal couldn't have looked more in bliss. She chewed away on the drug and rubbed at her throat as she swallowed. When her mouth was empty, she let out her strange clicking laugh and turned abruptly to face Calliope.

From within her sleeve she drew a pure white stick. Everyone stared at her. Smirking, she wiped her face with her free arm's sleeve and lifted the stick high. When she brought it back down, it morphed into an equally white revolver that she aimed at Calliope's head. Before Roxy could react, Zennal spun the revolver about to grasp it by its barrel, and offered it to Calliope. Awed, Calliope took it and stared.

"Where on Alternia did you find a shape-changing _gun_?" She asked.

Zennal's response was to smirk even more and hold a finger vertically in front of her mouth. Calliope looked at Dave; he said, "That means it's a secret and she's not telling."

"You think this is an appropriate weapon for me?" Calliope asked.

She tipped her head again to say "yes" before reaching out with a steady, languid hand. Enclosing Calliope's entire upper arm in her hand, she squeezed gently. With a shake of her head, she flicked Calliope's elbow. Dave snickered and Jane giggled.

"She thinks you're not strong enough for a traditional weapon," Jane explained.

"Oh." She wasn't sure if she should be insulted or not. It was certainly true, but it's still stung a bit. "How, ah, how does it work?"

Zennal looked at her with a drawn-together brows and a frown. Sighing through her nose, she held out her hand for the gun. Once Calliope had returned it, she pressed a small catch above the trigger, releasing the front of the gun to expose the back of the cylinder. Taking a single bullet from her pants pocket, she loaded it into the cylinder and closed the gun back up. Crooking her finger, she put the gun into Calliope's hand when she held it out. She arranged her hand, wrapping her thumb and the last three fingers around the butt of the gun and slipping her forefinger onto the trigger. Carefully, she aimed the gun toward the far wall and let go of Calliope's hand. She crooked her finger once again.

"Shoot it?" Calliope asked.

She nodded.

"But–the wall is stone. Won't it ricochet?"

Snickering, she shook her head.

"Well...all right." Wincing with anxiety, she slowly pulled the trigger. Because she was so unprepared for it, the recoil made her arm fly up and her body rock backward. She overcorrected for her ruined balance, stepping back too quickly and tangling her legs. She fell and made the mistake of throwing out her broken hand to catch herself. Yowling in pain, she crashed down on her back and struck her head on the floor. Dave and Zennal both laughed as she curled up in a ball, clutching the back of her head. Face alight with rage, Roxy kicked Dave as hard as she could in the leg and stormed over to Zennal to do the same. When the both of them were clutching the place she kicked them, she went to Calliope and kneeled down beside her. Wordlessly, she helped her sit up and took over the job of rubbing where she'd hit her head.

Snarling, Zennal glared at Roxy, but soon moved her gaze to Calliope. She tipped her head forward. Because Dave was too busy massaging his leg, Jane spoke up to say, "That means she's sorry."

"Uh-huh," Roxy said flatly. Still, she sighed quietly. "We'll take it. How much do you want?"

Zennal opened her hand to show all five fingers before closing it into a fist and clenching it tight. 

"Fifty?" Roxy asked. "Fifty what? Credits?" She looked at Jane in confusion. "Isn't that cheap for a gun like this?"

"She only operates in gold, Lalonde," said Dave.

Roxy's eyes widened. She turned to stare at Zennal. They looked at each other for such a long, silent time at Calliope could not stop herself from saying, "It's all right, I don't need–"

She cut her off. "Deal, wacky. Janey, do you have that much on you?"

"Dave," Jane said in reply. He took a pouch from a pocket inside his long coat and opened it, revealing small blocks of solid gold. "There should be fifty in there," Jane continued. "We brought one hundred just to be safe." She smiled at Zennal almost fondly. "Her prices always run a little high."

"I'll fuckin' say," Roxy said. She stood up and helped Calliope to her feet. "Do bullets come with all that gold?"

Zennal tipped her head before exiting the room once more. She returned shortly with a bulging pouch and a holster designed to be tucked under the arm and, after loading the revolver and changing it back into a stick, handed it all over to Calliope. Once everything was in Calliope's undamaged hand, she flicked her hand toward the door. Jane went to Roxy and Calliope, tugging on Roxy's elbow and Calliope's sleeve.

"Come on," she said, and there was faint nervousness in her voice. "That means she wants us to leave."

Roxy began to protest. "But–"

Jane yanked on her elbow more insistently. "Roxy, you know I love you dearly, but don't you dare be an idiot right now." She dropped her voice to a whisper, leaning close to be heard. "I have watched her tear out someone's heart when they didn't leave when she wanted. She's not going to give a damn about you being royalty. _We're leaving_."

To this, Roxy had no rebuttal. She swallowed, glanced at Calliope, and nodded. They moved in single file, Dave taking the last position to say "thanks" as they left. The door clanged loudly when Zennal slammed it shut behind them. Roxy opened her mouth, but was cut off by the cheerful trilling of Jane's phone. Holding up her finger for silence, Jane took the call and put the phone up to her ear.

"This is Jane," she said. After a pause, a smile slowly spread on her face. "Oh, _did_ you now? That's perfect timing. We'll be back shortly." She ended the call and looked to the others. "We caught our quarry."

"What quarry?" Calliope asked through grit teeth. She could not move her left hand without causing pain.

"Another bleatbeast for you, deary," she replied. She chuckled and tucked her phone back into her pocket. "Another unlucky bleatbeast."

"And what do you want me to do with them?"

Jane crooked her finger, gesturing for them to follow. The call had put her in a visibly good mood; she almost skipped as she walked at the head of their group. She paused to reach back, take hold of Calliope's right elbow, and pull her forward to walk at her side. "This is a troll rumored to work much higher up in Strider's little group. I want you to convince him to spill _everything_ he knows about his boss."

"Fine," Calliope muttered. "Can we go to a medicallous clinic first?"

"We'll give you something for the pain soon and go there later." She smiled charmingly up at Calliope. "I want to break him from the beginning–from all the defiance he can muster to when you work your magic."

"Sadist," Calliope said with as much admiration in her voice as the pain would allow.

Jane paused to dip into a curtsy. She walked arm-in-arm with Calliope the rest of the way, mindful of her hand all the while. Upon arriving, they did not go in through the front door, but went down another set of stairs cut into the ground. The room beyond the metal door was one Calliope recognized from the day before. Two bluebloods stood by the staircase inside, thick arms crossed over burly chests. In the center of the room was a scrawny troll bound to a chair, and the sight was still not a familiar one to Calliope. The bound man did not look up even when the door closed with a bang.

"So!" Jane said brightly. "You're just the troll I wanted to see."

The man was silent.

Jane moved to stand in front of him. "You're a favorite little lackey of my dear friend, Dirk, or so I hear." She took hold of his chin and lifted his head. She smiled at his frown. "Can you tell me why he sent me the head of my best seller-boy during the day?"

"Fuck off," the man spat.

"Oh, not yet." She put her thumb and middle finger at the back of his cheeks and pressed hard. He gasped at the pain of his fangs cutting the inside of his mouth and the sting of her claws in his flesh, and she kept the pressure on to keep his mouth open. "No, deary, we're just getting started." She reached into his mouth, thumb and forefinger extended. He flinched at the first touch of her claws to his gums.

"Are you _sure_ you don't want to tell me?" Jane asked. Before he could answer, she pinched her fingers together. It severed the connection one of his fangs had to his gums, and he sprayed Jane with his muddy blood as he screamed. Smiling, Jane plucked the fang from his mouth and tossed it aside.

"You fucking _bitch_!" the man howled.

Jane hummed lightly. "Do you want to tell me now?"

"Tell you _what_?"

"About your boss," she replied. "Every juicy little thing you have. I want to know everything there is to know about him."

Blood dripping fast and thick from his chin, the man huffed, "You've got a hate boner, don't you."

"The last person we tortured said he was more handsome than my matesprit, that he was smarter than anyone else, and he's working against me." She leaned in to whisper, "Of course I do," and she bit off part of his ear. As he roared in pain and anger, she spat the chunk of flesh and cartilage toward the fang on the floor and wiped at her chin daintily.

"Now," she said when her mouth was clean, "are you going to talk?"

He spat blood in her face.

Smiling still, Jane took off her glasses, leaving behind a clean place that the blood had not touched. Reaching into her pocket allowed her to retrieve a white handkerchief, which she used to wipe off the lenses. "Okay, I see you'd rather do this the hard way. Call?"

Hesitantly, she stepped forward. There was a single lamp hanging over the troll's chair, which cast a circle of light around him. It was stark: a brilliant shade of white that threw the blood accumulating on his body into sharp relief. She stood just outside the light, and just outside the man's sight for it. He squinted at her, desperate to see, but he could not make out her features.

"You want to tell us about Dirk Strider," she said.

All at once, the man went still. He stopped squinting and sat up straighter; he looked into the dark, awed and silent. The silence spread through the room, deepening until Calliope became the one who squirmed. The scrutiny of a person who could not see her combined with the pain that made her entire hand throb made her grow angrier as time passed. Finally, at a loss for what to do, she stepped into the light and grabbed the front of his bloody shirt.

"You want to tell us about Dirk Strider," she hissed.

The man laughed. He laughed and laughed and threw back his head and laughed even more. When she released his shirt, he brought his head back forward.

"I'll tell you about someone even _better_ than him," he said. "Someone he works for."

"He works _for_ someone?" Dave asked.

"Someone amazing," the man answered. He fixed his gaze on Calliope, and it was wild. "Someone who wanted to get a message to you."

Without fully realizing what she was doing, Calliope turned the stick into a gun, aimed it at the man's head, and blew out his thinkpan.

\-------

On any other occasion, she wouldn't have thought to mix painkillers with liquor. As it stood, it was all she wanted in life at the moment. However, Roxy had ordered her to do no such thing, even if their quartet had gone to a club to try and unwind from the day. She could summon no antipathy toward Roxy for her over-protectiveness; she was simply too tired to be angry. The painkillers probably factored into it, but she didn't care to think about it.

Calliope sat in one of the U-shaped booths at the club, staring at her bandaged and splinted fingers. Dave was the only other occupant of the booth at the moment, and he sat slumped in the rounded corner with his hands in his pockets. She could feel his eyes on her. She could feel all of their eyes on her from the moment she had shot the troll dead. None of them had spoken a word to her beyond Roxy admonishments about drinks and drugs. Roxy had been the one to suggest going to a place such as this, and no one put up an argument.

It was a young person's place, with blood splattering the floor from regular bar brawls and duels between kismeses. Calliope felt out of place, but it was not a new feeling for her. She looked away from her hand, trying to find Roxy and Jane in the crush of bodies on the dance floor. It was a difficult task, as they were shorter and smaller than most. Dave kicked her ankle.

"Ow! What the bloody hell was that for?"

"The fuck's wrong with you?" he asked in reply.

"What?"

"You're being a giant bag of piss. Why'd you kill that guy so fast?"

She stayed quiet and drew her legs out of his reach.

"Who's trying to send you a message?" he asked. He snorted after a moment of thought. "Why the fuck are you so important? Sure, royalty for a matesprit, a badass for a kismesis–"

" _I am not interested in blackrom with you_ ," Calliope shouted through the noise of the club.

He raised his hands, but one brow rose over his sunglasses at the same time. Slowly, he pointed at a spot closer to where she sat. She bared her fangs at him. He changed his aim to land on the space opposite her. She relented, but sat back and crossed her arms carefully as he moved. He nudged her foot with his.

"Wanna talk about it?" he asked gruffly.

She considered it for three seconds. That was all the time it took for her to know she wished no real ill on either Dave or Jane. She said, "No. I'm going to go get a drink."

"You're gonna piss off her highness, you know."

Calliope slid off the seat and shrugged slightly without looking at him. She went away then, weaving through the trolls milling about that hoped a table or booth would open up. A trio moved in her wake, but stopped short when they saw Dave still presiding. Calliope took no more notice of it when she reached the bar. The bartender took a long look at her before turning and plucking an ornate bottle from the shelves behind her. Dipping a small glass into a tub of ice below the bar with one hand and unscrewing the bottle with the other, the bartender nodded to the recently vacated seat at the bar. Calliope sat; the bartender poured out a drink. There was no prompting for conversation, only a silent presentation of liquor on ice, which Calliope took gratefully.

In personal silence she drank. All around her was noise and motion; more than once she took an errant elbow to the back. It was all easy to ignore, especially when the liquor began to take effect. Her mind wheeled on other matters, in any case. Looking briefly at the front door, she started to calculate how long it would take to escape into the ending night. She would have to abandon everything that was not on her person. It was not without gratefulness that she felt the weight of credits in her breast pocket, given to her by Roxy before they entered the club. However, hesitance gripped her when she moved her arm and shifted the holster buckled under her jacket. The gun was back in its stick form and rolled strangely in the holster. Whatever hesitance she had left her when she remember how much easier it had been to kill one of his messengers with a weapon other than her hands.

It wouldn't take too long, she decided, if she managed to slip away without being noticed.

A hand slammed down on the bar so hard some of the liquor in her glass splashed out. Dulled significantly now by drink and drug, she turned slowly to look at the hand. It was the largest hand she had ever seen, its claws long and sharp enough to gouge tiny furrows in the bar with the smallest flex of its fingers. She pushed her glass away from the hand, meaning to pick it up and take another drink. Breath on her ear made her pause, but it was the voice that made her freeze.

"Hey, sis."

Quickly, she turned about and looked up, up, up. The first thing she noticed–the only thing she _had_ to notice–was the troll's pure white hair. She noticed it, and her thoughts instantly distilled to "please no." The next thing she knew, she was face first against the nearest wall. The man's massive hand was clamped around her neck, and its twin had pinned her broken hand to the wall near her face.

"That makes another game you lose, Calliope," he said. He snickered. "Remember? Our last game of 'hide from me' ended the same way."

She struggled as best her bleary body would allow. Panic mixed with intoxication; she understood nothing beyond feeling sick and the need to get away. He crushed her fingers, snapping the splints, and she whimpered at the pain.

He laughed and pressed his knee between her legs. " _That's_ the sound I like hearing." Tall as he was, enormous as he was, he merely had to lean forward to press his shoulder against the back of her head to keep her stuck where she was. He let go of her neck and dropped his hand down to the fly of her trousers. "Let's hear some more of it, bitch."

Calliope's panic made her mute. She grabbed at his hand, but he was too fast. His fingers were inside her before she had the chance to grab his wrist. His claws cut her; she shrieked in pain. The trolls around them continued to go about their business, taking what was happening to be a tawdry public tumble for kismeses. Calliope opened her mouth to call out, but he stuffed the fingers of his other hand in her mouth, far enough that she would cut her own throat if she tried to bite and sever his fingers. Her left hand useless, she had to use her right to keep him from shredding her throat, and killing her then and there.

This was how it was every time he found her. This was his prize for winning their games. She knew what was coming before he moved, and she closed her eyes tight against tears when he forced her to rock back against his hips. It was only a minute more before he pulled his fingers out of her to tug down her trousers one-handed. He pushed his bulge inside of her, letting up on her enough that she could struggle and try to get away while he moved. And even though she knew there was no getting away, she still tried. Crying and whimpering, she tried, and failed.

"Should I tell someone to get us a bucket?" he asked. He laughed. "I _should_. Candy red and lime green go pretty fucking well together." He leaned down and bit the back of her neck hard, working off a piece of her flesh to spit onto the ground. "Nice cull-worthy colors. You'd like that, right?" He took his hand from her hip and brought it back down the front of her trousers, wrapping his hand around her unsheathed bulge. "You'd like it, _right_?" He gripped it hard and his claws pierced it in five places. She screamed around his fingers. 

A barstool smashed against his face so hard he was knocked off his feet. The moment he was no longer touching her, Calliope wrenched up her trousers and ran faster than her body wanted to allow. She didn't care about the pain, she just had to leave. She had no idea how much ground she covered after escaping the club, nor how many filthy alleyways she nearly collapsed in. All she knew was that she heard running footsteps behind her, and it meant she still had to get away. But in the end, something caught her by the wrist.

Summoning the last of her strength, she ripped her arm away and screamed, " _Don't touch me_!"

It was Roxy who stood there, hand still outstretched from trying to slow her down. She stood there and stared, at a loss for anything to say or do. Diluted pink tears began to well up in her eyes.

Calliope's strength was gone. She sank to the ground, pulled up her legs, and sobbed into the knees of her brand new, completely ruined trousers.


	4. without a mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the planet-side empress makes her appearance; the real antagonist and his goals and means are discussed; care is given; and something good happens.

Calliope lay on her back in a recuperacoon that was neither hers nor the hostelry's. There was a bandage on her neck; there was nothing to be done for the wounds to her nook and bulge. That was not the truth, strictly. There were creams sold to more violent kismeses, but she had not desire to bring her hands below her waist. She didn't want it ever again. Not if Roxy had seen her like that. 

Where Roxy was, she did not know. She wasn't sure if she cared at that moment as she sat up in the 'coon. The apathy faded when the thought of Roxy being caught by him floated into her mind. It was enough to force her to scramble to her feet and lean over the side of the 'coon to vomit copiously on the floor.

”That was excellent,” an unfamiliar voice drawled. ”Shall I fetch a towel?”

Calliope dropped down into the slime, curling into a ball with her arms crossed tight over her chest. Voice breaking from the abuse done to her throat, she shouted, ”Go away!”

”I'll do no such thing,” said the unfamiliar voice. ”I'm doing Roxy a favor by letting you stay in my hive while you recover, and I won't take a single order from you.”

”Who are you?” Calliope demanded, words pitching higher with fear. ”Where am I? How did I get here?”

”In reverse order, Roxy and my moirail brought you here under the threat of the sun, you are in my island hive, and I am Rose Lalonde.”

The need to vomit out of pure anxiety came too quickly for her to stand back up, and she threw up beside herself. When she was finished and realized what she'd done, she put her arms over her head and began to cry from shame.

”I'm going to leave your new clothes on this chair by the door,” Rose said, remarkably gentle. ”There's a shower in the corner. I'll be in the next room when you're done.” And she went away, closing the door behind her.

Despite what had just been said, she did not remember arriving in this place. She could barely remember anything but him, and he was surfeit in her mind at that moment. Calliope sat there and cried until she felt painfully empty. All she wanted to do was lay back down and die, but the last shrewd of herself was disgusted enough at the thought of lying in vomit-fouled sopor to force her to her feet. A burst of memory came with the pain she felt on standing, and she vomited yet again at the thought of him inside her. Sniffing, wiping her nose and mouth, she pulled herself gingerly out of the recuperacoon and went to the shower. Once inside, the glass door shut firmly behind her, she turned the water up as hot as she could stand. She sat down, legs tight to her chest, and took long, deep breaths.

There could be no touching herself, but she could not standing feeling anything dried on her. Slowly, she unbent her legs and crossed them loosely, letting the water spill over her abused skin. The renewed pain made her swear loudly, but she shifted to let the water inside her nook. When the water reached the cuts his claws had left, she bit down on a shriek. What came next was hardest: unsheathing her bulge by dint of will alone. She did it with great effort, getting her teeth and breathing deeply. But when she had managed it, the pain of the hot water coming to the punctures made her howl.

No matter how many times it had happened before, no matter how practiced she was at cleaning herself without her hands, Calliope could not get used to the aftermath. There was no changing the fact that it hurt badly. There was no changing the fact that even if her stomach was empty, she vomited one last time at the sight of his candy-red stain, diluted with the water, washing out of her with her own lime green. She hated it down to her soul, hated _him_ more than anything she knew. Calliope wanted so badly to die then, just as she always did on the evening after.

But just like the last four sweeps, a thought made her stand back up. It was the thought that there was one person on Alternia that would miss her if she killed herself, and making Roxy sad was always the last thing on her mind. Calliope turned off the water, dried herself with the towels stacked in a cabinet near the shower, and went to the chair with clothes on it. It was her suit, and she almost threw it to the ground. Almost, until she felt the fabric under her fingers. It was made of fine, soft velvet, and fit just as well as the cotton suit purchased the night before. Barefoot because neither her socks nor her shoes had been provided, she padded out of the room.

Where the hostelry room had been grand, the room she entered then was opulent. Art that she liked from first glance littered the room's walls; bookcases filled to strain were everywhere. Squashy-looking chairs were scattered about, and one had been turned to face the doorway she came from. A troll even smaller than Roxy occupied the chair, legs crossed at the knee beneath her long black shirt. On her three-quarter sleeved shirt was her lavender-colored sigil, which Calliope cold not parse as anything other than some strange curling script. Her horns her long, reaching straight up into their, and her hair was held back with a lavender headband. She was reading a thick book when Calliope arrived, and she spoke without looking up.

”There are antibacterial creams there,” she said, gesturing at the side table next to her chair.

”I don't want them,” Calliope replied automatically.

Rose looked up with a raised brow. ”Would you prefer an infection?”

”I–can't, I can't,” she said, and trailed off weakly.

For a long while, Rose regarded her with a cool, calculating gaze. Despite the chill in her eyes, her voice achieved that same remarkable gentleness as before when she said, ”Would you like me to call for a doctor to apply it for you? I'll have them killed for seeing your blood.”

”No, no, that's all right–”

”So you _do_ prefer an infection?”

”I'll be fine,” Calliope muttered. ”I always am.”

After a brief moment, Rose snapped her book shut and set it aside. She sat forward, putting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her propped up hands. ”Has this happened before?”

Calliope went silent.

”I see.” Slowly, she sat back. ”Let's change the subject, shall we? Do you want to know where your matesprit is?”

”How did we get here? He always follows me and–” She stopped and went quiet.

Rose hummed flatly. ”Dave was quite upset over what happened. When he's angry he tends to cut off body parts.” She gestured over her shoulder. ”I have half of the man's right leg in the kitchen.”

Her eyes widened. ”Dave _hurt_ him?”

”As did Roxy. According to what she told me, she hit him in the face with a barstool when she saw what was happening.”

She looked at the ground, eyes burning. ”So she really did see.”

”Indeed she did. She and Dave are back on the mainland looking to finish the job. It would be helpful if they knew the name of the man they're hunting.”

Calliope was silent for a long time. She eventually said, ”I can't put _all_ of you in danger.”

”I'm afraid they put themselves in danger by maiming your ra–”

”Don't,” Calliope cut her off. She continued to stare at the floor. ”Please don't.”

”You know that's what it was. What it is.”

”I know,” she said miserably. ”Please don't say it.”

Rose sighed. ”Fine. But it doesn't change what happened.” She opened her mouth to continue, but she was stopped by a strain of violin music rising from the pocket of her skirt. She retrieved a smartphone and tapped its screen to take the call. Quickly, she said, ”Yes, she's awake, just like the last twenty times you called in the last twenty minutes. The only difference now is that she is, in fact, standing in front of me.” She took the phone preemptively away from her ear in time to avoid being deafened by the shouting that even Calliope could hear.

” _What the fuck, for real? Lemme talk to her!_ ”

Rose held out the phone with an expression that brooked no protests. Getting her teeth, bearing down on the terror-induced bile that came up in her throat, Calliope took the phone.

”Roxy?” she said, all nerves.

” _Oh my troll God, it's you! Davey-boy, I got Callie on the line! Oh, thank fuck!_ ”

”You need to come back here,” Calliope said. ”And you need to bring Jane with you.”

Hesitation brought silence from the other end of the line. ” _But why?_ ”

”Please come back,” she said. She was horrified to find that it was growing difficult to speak with the way her throat was tightening at the mere sound of Roxy's voice. ”Please.”

” _Okay! Don't worry, we'll come back!_ ”

She could not cry; she started to hiccup hoarsely.

” _Oh, sweetness, it's okay. We'll all come right back._ ”

”Okay,” she managed to say. She swallowed hard and started to hold the phone back out to Rose when she heard her name called out. She brought the phone back to her ear. ”Yes?”

" _I love you, Calliope. I really, really do._ ”

It was too much. She let out a tiny, choked noise and shook her head without knowing why. Pushing the phone into Rose's hand, she sat down on the floor, pulled her legs to her chest, and hid her face in her knees.

Distantly, she heard Rose say, ”She loves you, too, Roxy.” After that, she tuned everything out. She did not pay attention to what Rose did or said, though she suspected that Rose did not speak to her after that. Calliope knew only one thing: Roxy was coming. She had no idea if she was terrified or if she was desperate. Much in the same way, it took Roxy far too long to arrive, and not long enough. All at once, she was standing in front of her, calling her name gently. She did not look up for a time, and moved slowly when she did. There were faint streaks of pink on Roxy's face, and she smiled nervously when Calliope looked at her.

”Hey,” she said quietly, lifting a hand.

Calliope stared up at her, misery in her face. She watched Roxy as she kneeled down, but made no other move. Roxy stayed still but for the wringing of her hands in her lap. They were silent and alone in the room; Rose had shooed Dave and Jane away when they tried to approach. Bit by steady bit, Roxy's smile went away. She moved suddenly, hands rising, and Calliope launched backward automatically. In her scramble, she put down the hand with broken fingers. The pain net her crashing down completely, and she curled up around her hand on instinct to guard it. She flinched when a shadow fell across her.

”Do you really think I'm gonna hurt you?”

She looked up. Roxy was half on her feet, one hand still stretched out for her. Tears had finally welled over in Roxy's eyes, and she swallowed down a whimper. For a moment, Roxy stretched a little further. Before Calliope could flinch away, she pulled her hand back slowly.

”Sorry,” she whispered. ”I won't try to touch you again.” She took a deep breath in an attempt to steady herself; it only made her sob that much harder. But before Calliope could say a word, Roxy snarled and slapped her face with both hands. She dropped down to crouch on the balls of her bare feet, looking at Calliope with her hands pinned between her thighs and stomach. Fiercely, she said, ”This ain't about me. Tell me what you want, Callie. I'll do whatever you want, even if it means fucking right off.”

She uncurled slowly, staring at Roxy once again. Even more slowly, she sat up properly, holding the wrist of her broken hand.

”But,” Roxy said hesitantly, ”I don't _really_ want to do that, you know? Because I love you _so much_ , Callie, I _do_ , and–” She stopped and closed her mouth.

Calliope had reached out for her as she spoke, arms open just enough to show that she wanted to be held. Roxy pointed at herself; Calliope nodded. Nodding in turn, Roxy moved closer as slowly as she could. Very gently, she put her arms around Calliope's shoulders. Just as gently, just as slowly, she touched her lips to Calliope's forehead. Calliope wrapped her arms around Roxy's waist, buried her face in her neck, and clung. Somehow, there was still something left in her to cry, and she did so with Roxy stroking her still-damp hair.

”Do you think you can handle being with other people right now?” Roxy asked. ”It's okay if you can't.”

”Please don't leave me.”

”I won't, promise. We'll hold hands the whole time.”

She clutched Roxy's shirt tight in her hands. ”Please don't leave me.”

She chose not to speak and instead tightened her hold in turn. Again, she touched a kiss to her brow. For a time, she remained there, breathing slow and steady against her skin. When Calliope drew away, she jerked back, arms whipping down to her sides.

”Sorry!” she said, shame dropping her ears. ”Fuck, I'm so sorry!”

”No, I–”

”I can stop and go somewhere else–”

”Roxy, _please_.”

She stopped and looked at her. Fright had come into Calliope's eyes. With urgency to match the fright, she took hold of one of Roxy's hands and held tight.

”Please don't leave me,” she repeated yet again. ”I just–I wanted...” Her voice went soft when she said, ”I wanted to kiss you. Is that okay?”

Roxy felt her bloodpusher crack. ”Why wouldn't it be okay?”

Starting to hiccup, she shook her head. Her left hand went to her chest. She rubbed there, wincing at the pain of moving her fingers. What happened next made Roxy go pale: Calliope managed to curl her fingers, snapping the splints, and gripped her shirt tight. In a breaking voice, she whispered,”Because I'm filthy.”

Silence fell over them. It was soon lifted by Roxy's hard, snarling reply. ”No, you're fucking _not_.” Moving slowly enough that Calliope did not startle, she reached out and made her open her hand. Once she was no longer wincing, Roxy moved her hand to stroke Calliope's face.

”You are not filthy, okay?” she said. ”Nothing that fucker did to you– _nothing_ he did–makes you filthy.” She gently took her hand from Calliope's grasp in order to join its twin on her face. ”I want you to listen to me, Callie, and listen good.” She patted Calliope's cheeks. ”Listening?”

”Yes.”

”Good. Because I'm gonna tell you some truths. First, gonna repeat myself. You are _not_ filthy. You are my super amazing lady and nothing can change that. And there's one other thing that's not ever gonna change, okay? That's the _fact_ that I love you. I love you like crazy and one bastard hurting you won't change that.”

”But–”

”Fact, Callie. Can't change a fact.” She smiled encouragingly. ”Can't even try, you know? It's better to just go with it.”

Calliope persisted. ”But how can you find me attractive after he–” She swallowed, tried to say the word, and could not do it. ”How could you anymore?”

She leaned in, holding Calliope still, and kissed her more gently than she ever had. Pulling back, she said, ”Because you being sexy to me is also just a straight-up fact.”

At a loss, Calliope simply looked at Roxy for a full minute. Very, very slowly, she sat forward and touched her lips to Roxy's. Roxy did not recoil, but instead pushed back a little. It was Calliope who soon pulled away, but Roxy was smiling at her.

”See?” Roxy said. ”That was still good, right?”

Calliope nodded once.

”And I really liked it, so it just goes to show you that me still finding you attractive is a fact.” She smoothed Calliope's brows with slow swipes of her thumbs. ”He can't take you away from me, no matter what he does. Okay?”

”Okay.”

Roxy raised a brow at the weakness of her voice. ”And I'm going to keep telling you so until you really believe it.” She tapped a kiss to the end of her nose. ”Now. Do you want to go talk with everyone about this guy so we can figure out how to kill his ass?”

Her mouth quirked into a smile despite herself. ”I would enjoy that, love.”

A grin split her features. ”Then let's go.” She hurriedly got to her feet and helped Calliope up after that. Moving to Calliope's right side, she grasped her hand and led her onward and out of the room.

The room they went to was smaller than the one before it, and easily identifiable as the kitchen because Calliope had not forgotten what Rose had said. Just as promised, there was a chopped off hunk of leg on a wood-topped island workstation. Rose was perched on a counter with Dave leaning back against it between her knees. She stroked at his head and horns, but he was scowling and did not purr. Jane paced around the island, staring down at the leg. The all looked up on Roxy and Calliope's arrival, and there was a flurry of motion from Dave and Jane. Jane reached them first, coming in for a hug, but Roxy stepped in and shook her head. She then frowned at Dave, who had only taken a few steps forward; he snorted and settled back with Rose.

”You okay, Call?” he asked.

“No,” she said honestly, “but I will be eventually.” She looked to the leg on the workstation and moved closer, Roxy in tow. “This is his leg?”

“Don’t know many motherfuckers with candy-red blood,” Dave said. “Check it.”

She did as she was told, turning the leg slightly to examine its cut end. Smeared and congealed red blood looked back at her, and she felt her stomach churn with the memory of his red inside her. She turned the leg away and said, “It’s his.”

“And who is ‘he’?” Rose asked. “What I understand from the things Dave and Miss Crocker have told me is that this man is working with the rebel sect that has had my kismesis trying very hard to assassinate me. That he is, in fact, their leader. What can _you_ tell us about him?”

Calliope fought to swallow down in her tight throat, managing it only because Roxy had not let go of her hand. “He’s a ten sweep old troll who’s never gone into space, he’s the only candy-red mutant on the planet, and his name is Caliborn.”

“Why’s his name similar to yours?” Dave asked.

“Why does that matter?” Roxy demanded, gills flaring.

“It’s not unkind to ask,” Calliope said, though miserably. She took a deep breath and looked at the floor. “Because _I’m_ a ten sweep old troll who’s never gone into space, I’m the only limeblood on the planet, and my real name is Calliope.”

Rose was the first to react, and did so by leaning forward, lacing her fingers together on Dave’s head, and resting her chin on her knuckles. She smiled, charmingly wicked. “An unregistered limey with ten sweeps under her belt. How in the hell have you gotten away with it for so long?”

“A lot of running,” she replied. “And a few murders.”

“How do you have an eight letter name?” asked Jane. “You haven’t _done_ anything.”

She shook her head and shrugged helplessly. “It’s just my name. I’ve known it all my life. I’ve only gone by ‘Call’ because when the drones came for my name, the computers only allowed four letters.”

“And the asshole ra—”

Rose dug her claws down into his scalp. He swore and batted them away.

“No, fuck that!” he barked. “I’m callin’ it as is! The shitstain owner of _that_ —” He jabbed a finger at the leg on the workstation. He then pointed to Calliope. “— _raped_ our girl Call! That’s horseshit and all of you know it! And I’m not going to fucking _coddle_ her! We’re all adult trolls here—no more of this!”

Jane tried to placate him. “We’re just worried about her—”

“Don’t ask me to pity her,” he cut her off. “That’s not how me and her run, and she knows it. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want us coddling her at fuckin’ all. Right, Call?”

She was silent, gripping Roxy’s hand tight. High on her cheeks, two spots of green showed. However, her gaze was not on Dave. She stared at the leg, breathing hard through her nose.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That’s the word for it. I just don’t want to use it right now.” She looked at Dave with sharp eyes. “And _you_ using it in an attempt to solicit a black romance with me will only result in me wanting to put my new gun to use on you instead of _him._ ”

“Fine,” he said with a smirk. “His head’s the best place for a bullet, anyway.” He chuckled, pulling down his glasses to look at her over them. “You really are hot when you’re pissed of, y’know.”

“Do shut up,” Calliope returned.

“In any case,” said Rose, reaching out to grab Dave by the horn and wrenching him back into her grasp, “what remains is Caliborn. Does he have a greater goal than tormenting you?”

“There was a message on Callie’s computer,” Roxy said slowly, looking at Calliope with hesitation. When she nodded, she continued. “He said something about a game for all of Alternia.”

“A game?” Rose sniffed delicately, disdain on her face as she regarded the leg. “This is still my planet, whatever my true goals. He can’t have it.”

Dave and Jane turned as one, but Jane, voice tremulous, spoke first and asked, “’True goals,’ ma’am?”

“Don’t call me ‘ma’am,’” Rose sighed. “It reminds me of my mother.”

“Then—Rose?”

“Mm.”

“What _are_ your true goals?”

“Ah, those.” She planted a gentle kiss on Dave’s head. “My apologies, dear. I’ve been keeping secrets.”

Shock was writ plain, clear, and true on Dave’s face as he turned about to look at her. “I’m your ‘rail. ‘Rails before everything, Lalonde.”

“Not when I didn’t know where your matesprit’s allegiances lie.” She slipped off the counter and moved to Jane. Though objectively the smallest of all, Rose managed to cow each of them by dint of personality, and Jane all but cowered on her approach. Convulsively, Dave reached out and grabbed Rose’s wrist, pulling her back slightly.

“Don’t—” he said, but she put two fingers over his mouth.

“I won’t do anything,” she said with her strange gentleness. She turned to Jane with a smile, which did exactly nothing to alleviate her fears. “Miss Crocker, how much worth do you place in the hemocaste system?” As Jane opened her mouth, she added, “I’m not asking a trick question, mind you. I want your honest answer.”

Jane hesitated; she fidgeted where she stood. “Well…not much? I mean, I get so much guff for being with Dave.”

“Would you worry about losing your crime empire should people not naturally award with respect for being a blueblood?”

Her hesitation was replaced by irritation. “I’ll have you know—and Dave can confirm this—that I got where I am thanks to my own brutality, not my blood. I would be back on top within a week if you got rid of the castes.”

“Good attitude,” Rose said with an even broader smile. “Very good, seeing as Roxy and I are trying to take down our mother and remove the hemocaste system.”

Calliope’s jaw dropped. She turned to looked at Roxy, who grinned shyly back at her. “Love, you said nothing about the empress.”

“I didn’t want to after you blew up at me last night.,” she protested.

“You blew up at her?” Jane asked, advancing and voice cold.

“No, wait a minute,” Roxy said, stepping in front of Calliope with her arms spread wide as a shield. “She was freaking out about Caliborn, she didn’t mean to be pissed.”

“Which brings us back to him, thankfully,” said Rose. “Before we discuss how best to defeat our mother, we need to talk about how to deal with Caliborn.” She looked to Calliope with a raised brow. “Well?”

“Wha—why in the world would you ask _me_ how to deal with him? This is always what—” Her throat clamped down on the words, rendering her completely mute. Face burning with shame, she shook her head furiously a moment. She looked at the floor, hands balled tightly at her sides, because she could not stand to see the horrified pity on their faces. Worst of all was Roxy, short enough that Calliope could not tip her head far enough forward to hide from her upturned face and the sadness on it.

“This’s happened to you before?” Roxy asked, eyes wide and watery.

“I—”

“ _Callie_ —”

“Let’s leave it be for now,” Rose said. “What I want to know is this. Do you know why he has followers when he is clearly too depraved?”

Calliope thought for a moment. She looked at Jane. “Wouldn’t it be smashing if you went and bit off one of Rose’s fingers?”

Jane blinked and nodded once before turning toward Rose. Dave darted between them, teeth bared and fire in his hands. “Take one more step and—”

“Stop,” said Calliope.

Jane blinked again and shuddered. She looked at Dave with confusion. “Why are you using your fire, dear?”

He stared at her, brows low and eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

“Completely!”

Dave then turned to Calliope, and again he bared his teeth. “What the fuck did you just do to my girl?”

“Exactly what I’ve done to all the bleatbeasts you’ve sent to slaughter through me,” she replied, “and exactly what Caliborn does with his ‘followers.’”

“What, he just uses psychic powers on them?” Roxy asked.

“Essentially, but what we do isn’t mind control,” Calliope said. “We’re persuading people—we make them think it’s _their_ will to do these things, which is much stronger than simple mind control. Caliborn just adds to his with the fear he naturally inspires.”

Jane shuddered again. “I can understand that. I’ve never seen a troll who looks like him in my life.”

“It’s part of why I dye my hair,” Calliope said.

“You dye your hair?” Roxy asked. “What color is it really?”

She hesitated, worrying the inside of one cheek. “It’s white, like his. I don’t want to look like him in the slightest.”

Dave regarded her through his sunglasses. After a moment, he hummed through his nose thoughtfully. “You’d look good in white.”

A low growl thrummed through her chest. “Could you, for _one minute_ , stop trying to antagonize me?”

He opened his mouth, but Rose grabbed one of his horns and yanked. She said, “For _ten_ , if you could, Strider.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “But you _would_. Why change anything about yourself because of him?”

“Because white hair on Alternia is limited to two trolls, and it therefore makes it very easy for me to be found. I try to avoid letting him win the ‘hide from me’ game.”

“Is everything a game to him?” Jane asked.

“Everything,” said Calliope. “Much of the problem lies in figuring out what his rules are. He’s a horrid cheat.”

“Fortunately, we have a cheater on our side as well,” Rose said cheerfully.

Calliope grimaced at the notion. “Who?”

Rose smiled, lifted a hand, and twitched her fingers. With a flash of black contained around her hand and the smell of burnt air, a long black wand appeared in her grasp. She said, “Me.”

Calliope and Jane’s jaws dropped; Roxy clapped her hands in delight; and Dave looked bored.

“Nice theatrics,” he remarked. “How’s your magic gonna help us?”

“Magic isn’t _real_ ,” Jane said in sharp protest.

Rose looked at her with a raised brow. She flicked the wand. All at once, Jane was thrown across the room by tendrils of black energy, and she smashed down onto a large dining table. Bouncing when she landed, she hit the floor with a yelp.

“I believe that counts!” Rose called after her with a laugh.

“That just looked like psychic stuff—like always,” Dave shot back before hurrying off to Jane.

With a frown, Rose aimed her wand at Jane once again.

“You don’t want to do that,” Calliope said, holding up her hands.

Rose paused. She dismissed the wand with a wave of her fingers and shrugged. “Of course I don’t. It’d be—” She blinked hard and looked at Calliope with a mix of admiration and rage. It left Calliope quaking where she stood, and Rose continued on. “Magic is real. Didn’t you wonder what made _your_ wand?”

“ _My_ wand? I have a shape-changing _gun_.”

She revealed the white stick she had been hiding behind her on the counter. “It’s a wand that can turn into a gun, but it’s still a wand. And if we’re lucky, you’ll be able to use magic alongside your powers of persuasion. But setting magic aside, I want you to try to guess Caliborn’s goal. You’ve played his games the longest. You say he cheats, but to what end?”

“To win prizes,” she answered. “He’s vain and greedy.”

“And the prize for this game is Alternia itself.”

“Based on what he said in his message, I feel safe in assuming so.”

Rose hummed thoughtfully. Very abruptly, she summoned her wand and flicked a shot of energy at her too quickly to dodge. A faint pop rang out, and Calliope looked up at the tingling in her scalp to see a cloud of black smoke dissipating above her. The cloud, and the strands of white hair that now hung in front of her face. She clapped her hands to her head, trying to hide her natural hair.

“What in the bloody fucking hell did you do that for?” she snapped, eyes wide in horror.

“Seeing if Dave was right.” She smirked. “He was, as he often is about the loveliness of women.”

Panic began to set in; she felt ill once again. She turned to sprint out of the room, but Roxy caught her by the elbow. When she looked at her, she found amazement in Roxy’s wide eyes and open mouth.

“That’s so _pretty_ ,” said Roxy, voice quiet. “Can I touch it?”

After a long pause, she nodded once. She leaned down as Roxy reached up, wincing when her hands delved into her hair.

“It’s crazy fluffy!” Roxy laughed. “Callie, your hair’s awesome this way!”

“But—”

“Hey, as far as I’m concerned, you had it first.” She turned and stuck her tongue out at Dave. “And you ain’t ever gonna get to play with it, Davey-boy!” He showed her his middle fingers; she laughed. She turned back to Calliope and stood up on her toes to kiss her. Whispering, she said, “And now you’re even more attractive to me, so there.”

Calliope said nothing, and was too confused to do so much as change her expression. She simply let Roxy play with her hair until Rose spoke up.

“If we’re talking about winning Alternia, I think I’ve discerned his method of cheating.”

“What?” Calliope asked, stopping Roxy’s hands so she could stand up straight.

Rose pointed at herself. “If he kills me, he throws Alternia in a panic.” She then aimed her finger and Roxy. “And if he kills you as well, it destroys the line of succession on the planet entirely. And by the time any reinforcements or highbloods came down from space, I’m sure he’d already have the army behind him thanks to his mental abilities.” She smiled ruefully. “It certainly explains why Jade’s been trying so hard to kill me.”

Open rage had come to Dave’s face with Rose’s explanation, and he stormed over to Calliope. Grabbing by the bowtie, he yanked her off balance and held a handful of fire so close to her face she smelled hair burning.

“That the truth?” he asked in a low, cold voice. “Is your sketchy as fuck rapist stalker going to come after my moirail?”

“Miss Lalonde—”

“Rose,” she said.

“Rose,” Calliope amended. “She makes a compelling argument. It may be his plan, or some part of his plan.”

“Then you tell me where the fuck he is _now_ ,” Dave snarled, twisting the bowtie so it choked her.

Roxy kicked him hard between the legs and sent him crashing, coughing, to the floor. She guided Calliope away before returning to him and rolling him over to his back. She kneeled down on him, one leg on his chest and the other on his throat. Pressing down on his neck, she said, “How’s about you never do anything like that to her in front of me. That’ll make things way easier for all of us.”

“Get off my moirail, Roxy,” Rose said. “I don’t _want_ to kill you.”

“Tell him to stop fucking with Callie!” Roxy returned. “You’re the one who said for him to stop for ten damn minutes!”

“Not— _kffk_ —not fucking,” Dave choked out. “My _moirail_ , bitch—” He got no further, as Calliope stepped forward and slammed her foot into his side hard enough to snap a rib. She was immediately sent flying almost completely through a wall courtesy of a gesture from Rose and her wand. Despite the pain in her back, she pulled herself out of the hole and stood back up, Roxy coming to stand with her.

“He’s never to use that word to Roxy,” she hissed, trembling with fury. “Never again, do you understand? If he does, I will send _him_ to kill _you_.”

Rose considered her for a moment. Eventually, she said, “That’s what Caliborn calls you, isn’t it.”

“It’s a vile word and has not place being used for a person like Roxy. Tell him to never use it again.”

Dave sat up and snarled, “Fuck you bit—”

“ _Dave_!” Jane snapped. She stomped over to him and slapped the back of his head. “ _I_ have scolded you about this in the past, and I won’t have you use those words to my moirail _or_ Miss Call! Apologize so we can move on!”

He looked at Rose. When she frowned, he sighed. “ _Fine_. Sorry, fuck. No more name-calling.” He took to his feet slowly, clutching the side Calliope had kicked. “Fucking hell, Call, maybe I need to rethink being your kismesis if your response to getting pissed off is to kick the shit out of me.”

“That could prove wise,” Calliope replied.

“In any case,” Jane said, crossing her arms and looking stern, “we still have a problem. What do we do about it?”

“I say we do what we were gonna do,” said Roxy. “Try and convince Dirk that we’re really on his side. I guess we’re really just tryin’ to stop Harley from gunning down Rosie until we can figure out what to do about Caliborn.”

Rose nodded. “Sounds good.” She pointed to Jane and Dave. “You two go to work on the mainland and try to get more information about this other Strider.”

Surprise took Roxy aback. “What about me and Callie?”

“I have a job I need to discuss with you,” Rose replied. “The rest of you, leave. Miss Crocker, Dave, come back here by daybreak. I want full reports on whatever you find out.” She waved her hand in dismissal, and Dave, Jane, and Calliope took their leave. Calliope lingered near the doorway of the kitchen after Dave and Jane had gone, torn between listening in and not. Curiosity won out, and she stood up against the wall next to the doorway.

“Is she okay?” she heard Roxy ask, and she knew immediately who they were speaking about.

“That’s more for you to determine, isn’t it?” Rose said in return. “She’s your matesprit, not mine.”

Roxy stamped a foot in exasperation. “Rosie, you know what I meant. Did she use those creams I got?”

“No. That’s the job I have for you. I won’t have her put out of commission by infections to her genitalia.” A moment of silence. “She doesn’t remember how she got here.”

She sighed. “Dave said she started drinking. She was on pain pills.”

“That partially explains her stupor. You need to take care of her.”

“Of course I will!” Roxy said, heat in her words.

“So you’ll get her to use those creams?”

“Yeah! I don’t want her sick!”

“Best of luck. I have things to attend to.” Calliope heard soft footsteps and then heard Rose calmly say, “Oh, hello, Calliope.” Rose departed then, and her departure was followed by sprinting footsteps. She looked to the side when the footsteps stopped and saw Roxy, pink-faced and mortified, standing there. She looked away.

“Um,” Roxy began, “well…hi, Callie.”

She said nothing.

“Okay, you heard everything,” Roxy said, wringing her hands. “Or, I guess. I just—okay, listen, I’m not gonna make you do _anything_ you don’t want to do. But Callie— _Calliope_ —I really, really don’t want you sick. Can you try for me?”

“I can’t touch myself,” she whispered. “Please don’t make me.”

“But you don’t know how nasty his claws were! You need to do this!”

She fell back into silence.

Roxy thought for a moment. “Can you let me do it?”

Calliope opened her mouth, but found no words. She swallowed. She swallowed again. “Why would you want to?”

She smiled very gently. “Because I want to take care of you.” She looked about to check they were alone. She stood up on her toes, taking hold of Calliope’s shoulder to make her lean down, and murmured, “And I still really want to touch your stuff when you’re okay with sexy-times.” She came off her toes and continued to smiled. “So can we try it with me?”

For a long time, she was silent and still. She mumbled, “Will you stop if I ask?"

“Why would I do anything else?” She took Calliope’s right hand in both of hers. “I’m gonna be crazy gentle and I’ll listen to everything you say.”

Calliope breathed slowly, staring at Roxy’s hopeful eyes. She swallowed one more time before hesitating, closing her eyes tight, and nodding. Even when Roxy kissed her fingers, she did not open her eyes. It took the gentle tug to her hand for her to look at Roxy again, and only for a moment. She let herself be led back where she had first come from, pausing only for Roxy to pick up the jar of cream from the side table. They went to the room Calliope decided was the guest room. Once the door was closed and locked behind them, Roxy began to strip.

Calliope blanched. “Roxy!”

“We’re doin’ this in the shower,” Roxy said, all no-nonsense. “Come on, nothing’s gotta be sexy.” Shirtless, she suddenly wrapped her arms around Calliope and burned her face in her chest. “Nothing, okay? I know you don’t want it now.” She closed her hands in Calliope’s jacket. “It’s okay if you never want it with me ever.”

“Roxy,” Calliope said softly, “you just startled me.”

Roxy looked up, but too a step back and rubbed her face with both hands. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I do!” she shot back. “I keep turning this back around to me! That ain’t right!”

“At least you’re trying,” Calliope said. “That’s more than anyone’s done for me before.”

Roxy’s mouth twisted. “Callie…why do you go around breaking my heart every other minute?” She reached up to hold Calliope’s face, stroking at the curve of her brows and the arch of her cheekbones. “I’m sorry, and that’s it. All you gotta know is that we’re not gonna turn this around to me again. So let’s just hop in the shower and get through this together, okay?”

“Okay.” She reached up to undo her bowtie, but stopped; Roxy let go of her and spun about on heel to give her a modicum of privacy. She disrobed and went to the shower. As Roxy finished undressing, Calliope sat down with her legs to her chest. She waited, staring at the floor, until Roxy kneeled down beside her and touched one of her knees.

“Ready?” Roxy asked.

“No,” Calliope said honestly.

“Okay.” She closed the door and sat down completely. She leaned against Calliope’s side, legs drawn up slightly to let her hands rest on her knees. For a while, she sat silently and fairly still, only fidgeting by drumming her hands.

“Calliope?” she asked, going still.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

She found a tiny smile deep inside herself. “I love you, too.”

“Calliope?”

“Yes?”

“Can I just touch your leg for a little while?”

Calliope said nothing, instead looking at Roxy. She studied her closely, took in the way her eyes were nervous. At the same time, she felt her own bloodpusher beating hard and quick inside her chest. She admitted, “I’m scared.”

“What for?”

“That if I’m touched like that, I’ll-just—well…”

“That you’ll come?”

Her face burned hotter than it ever had. “Yes.”

“Is that gonna be a bad thing?”

“I was just—I mean…he—” She closed her eyes tight. “—he…he raped me last night.”

Roxy wrapped her arms around Calliope and held on through her shaking. “You’re good, sweetness, you’re good.” She kissed her shoulder. “Do you not want that to happen?”

“But I was…I _shouldn’t_.”

“Shouldn’t what?”

“Shouldn’t be touched—shouldn’t have an—” Her throat closed up.

Roxy kissed her shoulder again. “You’re not gonna let him destroy that for you, are you?” Sex is a nice thing—if it’s what you want and you feel comfortable, then why not?”

Calliope whimpered.

At the sound, Roxy looked at her and found a blush that went to the tips of her ears. Her brows rose. “Is that what you want right now?”

“I want—I want to know,” Calliope stammered, voice growing softer with each word, “th-that I’m not…broken.”

“Is that what you really want right now?”

Her face burned even hotter. “It’s—no, no, it’s too strange, I know, I’m terrible and—”

Roxy put her fingers over Calliope’s mouth to stop the stream of words. “Is that what you really want right now? Just yes or no, Callie. Both are totally fine.”

A great pause of silence.

Calliope whispered, “Yes.”

She kissed her cheek. “All you ever have to do is ask, okay?” She giggled and tapped the end of Calliope’s nose. “And just so you know, I’m _always_ up for sex.”

Calliope could only stare at her; she couldn’t even think to swallow down the enormous lump in her throat. Her voice cracked when she said, “Can I kiss you?”

“Fuck yes.” She leaned in as Calliope did, and a faint moan escaped her when their lips met.

She jerked away in surprise. “We—we only _kissed_!”

“You just asked me to touch your stuff,” Roxy replied. “You got me all excited and I love kissing you.” She paused. “Is me making noise gonna be bad? ‘Cause then we might have a problem.”

“That’s not it!”

She mused on this briefly. “Do you _like_ me making noise?”

“I think it’s one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard!” She cowered at her own volume, and more quietly added, “I wasn’t expecting it to be so…arousing.”

“Callie, you are seriously the cutest fuckin’ thing in the universe.” She drummed her fingers on Calliope’s knee. “Do you think you’re okay with me touching you down there soon?”

She looked at Roxy’s hands anxiously. Her brows rose when Roxy lifted one and displayed her now blunt and rounded claws.

Rather shyly, Roxy explained, “It freaked me out to see claw marks on you, so I did this when we first got here. So…think they’ll be okay?” Calliope kissed her again, and Roxy was horrified to feel tears running down her face. She drew back and held Calliope’s wet face. “Babe? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t believe you did something so kind for me.” She managed to smile despite the tears. “I love you.”

Roxy grinned. “Love you, too.” She released Calliope’s face and turned to her other side to pick up the jar. “Before we do anything, we’re takin’ care of your hurts.”

“Is it _going_ to hurt?”

She considered this before biting her own arm.

“ _Roxy_!”

She waved away Calliope’s frantic hands, lapping at the blood and the wounds. The bleeding quickly tapered off and stopped, and she took off the jar’s lid to dig her fingers into the cream within. She spread it over the punctures, smiling as she did. “No, if you hurt it’s gonna make it feel crazy better. C’mere.” She patted Calliope’s ankle, pressing on its inside. Calliope resisted a moment; Roxy stopped instantly. She watched Roxy turned about on her rear so they would face one another. Roxy tucked her legs beneath her at an angle and leaned against Calliope’s leg.

“Doin’ okay?” she asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Is it cool if I touch you a little more?”

Hesitance took her for only a moment. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Can you make your leg straight?”

She no longer trusted her voice, and so she nodded. Taking a deep breath, she stretched out her leg and shivered at the coolness of Roxy’s hand as it came to the inside of her thigh.

“Still okay?”

She nodded.

“Cool,” murmured Roxy, and she moved her hand up. She went inch by inch, very slow, very soft. She rubbed her knuckles in the crease between thigh and body, leaning in to pepper kisses on Calliope’s neck. She paused to reposition herself, moving to kneel between Calliope’s legs and bringing the jar with her.

“I know it’s kinda fast, but are you ready?” she asked.

Calliope swallowed once, looked down a moment, and closed her eyes. “Is it all right if I keep my eyes shut?”

Roxy pressed a kiss to her blushing cheek. “It’s fine. But if you get the urge to open up your eyes and sneak a peek at me being sexy, that’s fine, too. Okay, for reals now—ready?”

She nodded, mouth too dry for words.

Roxy kissed her shoulder before dipping her hand into the jar. Getting the cream thick on her hand, she kissed Calliope’s lips and reached down. Before she slipped her fingers inside her nook, she murmured, “Love you,” against Calliope’s skin. Though Calliope shuddered, she did not speak up.

“You okay?” Roxy asked.

She nodded, drawing long breaths.

“Good.” She moved her fingers in broad sweeps, spreading the cream over the healing cuts. When there was no doubt that the hurts had been tended to, Roxy kissed Calliope again. “So what do I do to get a peek at your bulge?”

Calliope closed her eyes even tighter. “Just—keep doing what you’re doing. And—um—move your f-fingers?”

“Oh?” She smiled and began to slide her fingers in and out. “Good?”

She bit down hard on her lip and nodded.

“Hey, Callie?”

“W-what?”

“You wanna know something important?”

She cracked open her eyes. “What?”

“You’re really hot.”

“Oh, th-thank—”

“And I mean,” she said, spreading her fingers within her, “hot.”

“ _Roxy_!”

She giggled. “What? It’s totally the truth!”

“I didn’t realize you’d—talk dirty to me!”

The smile vanished instantly. “Is that bad?”

She was nearly panting, and her face ached for blushing. She mumbled, “I like it.”

Something slick and undulating touched Roxy’s wrist, and she looked down to see Calliope’s bone bulge, unsheathed and the same green as her blood. “I see, yeah.” She kissed Calliope’s shoulder again. “Is it cool if I touch you there, too?”

She nodded, nearly desperate. Her breath hitched when Roxy withdrew, and she whimpered as she watched her gather more cream on her fingers. In time with Roxy reaching for her did she lift her hips and stretch out her bulge, and she let out her first moan when Roxy closed her hand around it. Her thumb played at its tip as she stroked it up and down. Calliope groaned at the relief of the cream on the wounds, and she went steadily more relaxed as Roxy lazily stroked her.

“Hey,” Roxy said, nuzzling her face against Calliope’s. “Hey.”

“What?”

“Can I make you come? Is that okay?”

Calliope mouthed something silently.

“Callie? What’d you say?”

“Please.”

“Anything you want, babe.” She brought down her other hand and slipped her fingers into her nook.

“ _Roxy_!”

“Bad?”

The blush was threatening to encompass all of Calliope’s face, which she hid in both hands. Her words came out muffled when she spoke, and she opened her hands to choke out, “ _Good_.”

Roxy grinned. “Keep going?”

Calliope nodded once, hard.

“I can do that.” She began to stroke her bulge faster, and did the same with how she fingered her nook. She smiled broadly at the choked noises Calliope let out, and moaned to match her. “Callie, oh, I love you _so much_ , sweetness. You’re so, so pretty, _oh_ you’re pretty.” She pressed her lips to her ear and purred, “Come for me, Calliope.”

It was more than enough. All the muscles from her stomach down clenched tight. She choked on the air itself, unable to breathe, much less cry out. With each seize of her muscles, thick green genetic material spurted from her bulge to land on Roxy’s stomach. It was fierce enough that should could not breathe for a full minute after her body stopped spasming, and she drew a deep gasp when she could. Blinking hard, she looked at Roxy. Her blush, on the road to fading a little, redoubled at the sight of her genetic material on Roxy’s skin.

“Oh— _fuck_!” she gasped. “Love, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I’ll get—”

Roxy kissed her silent. “It’s okay. That’s why showers are so good.” She smiled. “So that was okay?”

Still out of breath, Calliope only nodded.

“See? Not broken.” She shifted where she knelt, rubbing her thighs together. “Sexy as hell, though.”

Calliope watched move. She swallowed and licked her lips. “Roxy?”

Eyes half-closed, rocking against her heels, she hummed a replying question.

“C-can I touch you, too?”

Her eyes snapped open completely. “For serious?”

“If that’s okay?”

In less than a second, Roxy had wrapped her arms around Calliope and draped herself in her lap. “Callie, I want nothin’ more in the world right now.” She winked. “I’ll probably come just as fast as you.”

“It’s really all right to touch you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I—I don’t want to be like—”

She cut off her words with another hard kiss. When she drew back, she said, “No bringing bad thoughts into sex. This is a good place, so we’re not gonna worry about it.” She kissed the hollow of her throat. “You’ll be fine. I just _really_ want you to touch me.”

Without much air in her lungs and no moisture at all in her mouth, Calliope nodded yet again. She wavered, unbroken hand in the air over Roxy’s body. She looked at Roxy, desperate confusion in her face.

Roxy giggled and said, “Put up a leg, okay?” She repositioned herself when Calliope did as she was told, leaning against her leg, and brought Calliope’s hand down on one smooth breast. A small moan fell from her parted lips, and she put her head on Calliope’s shoulder. “That’s good.”

Calliope, a bundle of nerves, asked, “Just that?”

She hummed pleasantly. “You can play with me.”

Her eyes widened; her blush strengthened. For a moment, she opened her mouth to speak. Reconsidering, she simply tipped her head down to kiss Roxy’s other breast. It drew up a faint gasp from her, and she kept on kissing to make her start to moan. Calliope felt Roxy shifting her legs to rub her thighs together, and gathered up her courage to take her hand from her breast and reach down between her legs. She slipped her fingers inside of her.

“Oh,” Roxy moaned. She started to purr then, pressing kiss after kiss to Calliope’s neck. “Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

It wasn’t long of stroking her fingers inside Roxy that Calliope felt her bone bulge wrap around her wrist. “Is it okay to touch you? I mean—I can’t do what you did—my hand—”

“Shh,” Roxy hushed. She moaned again, rocking on Calliope’s hand. “Just touch me.”

She nodded, swallowed, and took her fingers out. She moved her hand to her bulge and began to stroke it slowly, minding her claws. To her amazement, Roxy squirmed in her lap, hips moving and rising and falling. She held tight to Calliope and let out mewling cries against her neck. Very suddenly, she made Calliope lift her head away from her chest and kissed her hard. In that instant, she came, splattering both herself and Calliope with her pink genetic material. Roxy panted against Calliope’s lips and lapped at the cuts her fangs had caused in her kisses.

“Wow,” she managed to say. She laughed a little and buried her face in Calliope’s neck. “ _Wow_ , Callie. Thank you.”

“That was so fast,” Calliope said.

“Told you it might be.” She sighed, smiling massively. “That was great.”

“But—”

She put two fingers over Calliope’s mouth. “We’ll go slower next time. I think we both just really needed a quickie.” She wiggled out of Calliope’s lap and stood up, unsteady at first. She looked don and laughed at the mess on her skin. “Our colors look great together! I wonder what color they’d be in a bucket.”

Calliope could not help herself; she began to laugh, and hard. She kept on laughing even when Roxy turned on the water and aimed it at her, and even until Roxy returned to sit in her lap. She giggled into her hair until tears came to her eyes. Though her laughing tapered off, the tears did not, and she wept quietly.

“Callie?” Roxy asked. “You okay?”

“You always make me feel better,” said Calliope. “How the hell do you make me comfortable enough to do—what we just did after—what happened last night?”

Roxy, at a loss, shrugged slightly. “I just love you. Maybe that’s enough?”

Calliope had been smiling through all her tears, and it broadened at Roxy’s words. “I think you may be right, love.” She kissed the top of her head and whispered, “I love you, too.”


End file.
